YOUNGSTERS at Prudhoe’s Highfield Middle School have pledged to ‘Love Northumberland, Hate Litter’ as part of a county-wide clean up campaign.

The county council initiative aims to raise awareness of the negative impacts of littering, including the huge cost to the tax payer of cleaning streets and public spaces each year.

Phases of the campaign focus on different types of litter, including cigarette ends, fast food wrappings, roadside litter and town centre rubbish, as well as promoting pride in local areas.

To help launch it, a series of school litter picks have been planned across the county, with pupils from Prudhoe getting hands-on to clear litter from the town’s Highfield Park.

They were joined last week by Coun. Tony Reid, county councillor for South Prudhoe.

The council has previously worked with the school to educate children about littering and provided litter picking equipment such as gloves and hi-vis jackets.

Coun. Ian Swithenbank, cabinet board member responsible for local services at the county council, said: “It is great to see children from Highfield Middle School taking positive action in their community and pledging their support to this campaign.

“They did fantastic work cleaning up their local park, and by doing so they are making a real difference.

“I hope that the local community in Prudhoe and elsewhere are inspired and motivated by their hard work, to follow their lead in embracing the anti-litter campaign and continuing to make positive improvements to their local environment.”

As part of the initiative, the council has conducted litter awareness talks in 24 schools around the county over the past year, educating more than 2,000 children in the process.

The council has also collaborated with parish and town councils, businesses and local organisations to raise awareness of littering and develop solutions.

Since the launch of the first ‘Love Northumberland, Hate Litter’ campaign last year, 109 community clean-up events have been organised and supported with the provision of equipment and rubbish disposal.

In the last 12 months, more than 350 littering fixed penalties have been issued, 42 of which resulted in prosecutions; 400 tonnes of fly-tipped rubbish has been removed and 17 cases of fly-tipping have led to prosecutions.