NOW that spring is once again almost upon us, we all have the opportunity to see our town and surrounding areas beyond the gloomy days of winter.

And I have to say that parts of Bury are not a particularly pretty sight.

Despite the fact that the council does a creditable job of keeping the town centre fairly clean - notwithstanding the best efforts of some whose acquaintance with bins seems rudimentary at best - it's quite easy to find less public areas of the borough which, quite frankly, seem to be magnets for litter and rubbish.

I appreciate that, like all councils, Bury MBC must keep a tight rein on the public purse, but I would be very interested to know just how much it would cost to divert the various clean-up crews to areas blighted by the discarded detritus of the lazy and stupid. Given that Bury actually has an embryonic tourist trade of sorts, would it not pay dividends to give the more distressed areas of the borough a once-over?

Of course, the ultimate answer to this - as we should be only too aware - is that the attitude of nonchalance and apathy towards litter and badly disposed of rubbish needs to change. If you see people littering, intervene and ask them politely to use the bins provided, or else to take their rubbish home with them.

It's not rocket science, as the saying goes, and with a small amount of effort and attention, it seems to me that we would be able to have a litter and rubbish free environment. Isn't that worth going for?

MR CLEAN