HARTLEBURY Common has been cleared of fly-tipping after three years of hard work from a band of volunteers.

The amount of fly-tipped rubbish at the site measured over three metres high and "looked like a landfill site" when volunteers took on the challenge to bring the lower heath area back into use.

Excavators were even needed to remove tons of heavy fly-tipped waste, so that the volunteers could reach the rubbish.

The Pick Up Artists, working with Worcestershire County Council and Hartlebury Common Local Group, carried out 500 hours of volunteering, led by Keep Britain Tidy ambassadors Karen Blanchfield and Pauline Round.

Skips and trailers were filled with hundreds of bags of litter over the period of the three years.

Karen Blanchfield said: "To me, it looked like a landfill site, it was higher than three metres tall and it stretched hundreds of metres. I couldn’t begin to think how and where would we start on our first visit but knowing our fantastic community of volunteers that we are blessed to have, we agreed to just start somewhere. That somewhere lead us to take on the biggest project The Pickup Artists have ever seen.”

Pauline Round added: "Thanks to the dedication of WCC rangers and all the volunteers we have now after three years transformed this wonderful nature reserve to how mother nature intended it to be. This part of the common is now a haven for community members, local businesses, the wildlife, and plantations. I would like to thank everyone who helped us with the epic community project.”

The army of volunteers and WCC staff will gather once more to do a litter pick on December 20 and are asking all the volunteers who have been involved to attend to see and celebrate achievements of the clean up.