Church leader’s litter pick up initiative as strike continues

A church leader in Portadown has organised a town centre clean up as the ongoing council workers’ strike has left litter bins overflowing into the street.

Chris Leech of the Emmanuel Church in Meadow Lane said his group of volunteers was meeting up last night to make the area look more presentable – and a bit safer.

Pastor Leech said they decided to act after a young child coming out of a church service picked up a discarded half-empty bottle of cola and was preparing to drink from it.

Members of Unite, the GMB and Nipsa unions are taking industrial action over pay, with street bins and street cleaning one put on hold during the dispute.

“People are throwing rubbish on the ground because the bins are full... so I think we are going to have to empty some bins,” Pastor Leech said.

“We love our town and it is sad to see it a mess. At the same time,

“I am completely for justice – that is one of the things that the church is about – and people being paid a fair wage is part of that.

“So we are very much for what the people who are striking are doing. In fact, I was chatting to some of them at the picket line this morning.

“I am the manager of a local food bank, so one of the things I was doing was making sure that if any of them aren’t being paid that they know there is practical support there for them as well.

“If we can do a wee bit that is going to tidy up the town and support local retailers then we will do that.”

Commenting on the young child who had to be stopped from drinking from the discarded cola bottle, he said: “We had an incident where a three-year-old came out of church and saw a half empty bottle of Coke and picked it up and was about to drink it, before somebody grabbed them.

“That happened in just a few seconds, so there are the environmental issues around the look of the place, and vermin, but children don’t know not to pick up things so that was something we witnessed first hand.”

Pastor Leech added: “I’ve already heard of people avoiding the town centre because there is so much rubbish around.”

In a Facebook comment about the state of Portadown town centre, the Friends of the Birches group said: “Bring on the rats. Town is absolutely disgusting with litter strewn everywhere, bins overflowing, bags stuffed beside bins.”