The nationwide call for hundreds of volunteers to roll up their sleeves and pledge to pick up litter across their local communities has returned to Manchester.
The Great British Spring Clean 2025 is the annual campaign rolled out by Keep Britain Tidy which encourages residents to take the initiative in organising their own litter picks and bringing together communities.
With over 1,000 bags of litter collected last year, residents are being spurred on again to help tidy up their local neighbourhoods through cleaning up pathways, parks and other greens spaces.
While The Great British Spring Clean has marked its 10-year anniversary, the event also celebrated the improvements being delivered through Clean and Green Manchester campaign with a campaign launch event in the much-loved Boggart Hole Clough Park.
The epic event featured an array of outdoor activities for families and school pupils such as Bee Pedal Ready, the Cycling Mayor for Greater Manchester and British Cycling who all led activities on track alongside a host of games near the park’s popular Lakeside Cafe.
There was a chance to take a walk with a local storyteller from Manchester Libraries through the twists and turns of the park. A Bloom Trail led by the National Trust launched on the day and provided free resource packs to children of the latest sprouting flowers and shrubs as spring emerges. Read Manchester also ran with the theme of spring, performing poetry on what is also World Poetry Day.
And in the true spirit of the Great British Spring Clean, litter picks took place on bikes and on foot. With an estimated 250 people in attendance, the GBSC team attempted to break the local record for the most amount of volunteers – made up of school pupils, community groups, partners and businesses – at a single litter pick in Manchester. Numbers will be verified later.
The three-week run of litter picks around the city and country, coincides with the council’s three-year investment project called Clean and Green Manchester.
Launched in August last year, up to £15m was pledged to improve Manchester’s green spaces, accessibility needs and make communities cleaner and greener to live in.
So far, around 332 projects have been started around Manchester, including £5.1m spent on repairing parks with new accessible pathways, benches and new play equipment such as swings.
The litter bin roll out saw hundreds of replacement bins around the city to help reduce litter, while £50k has supported tree works throughout the city making sure they are healthy and long lasting and adding cycle storages to at least six parks with partners at Transport for Greater Manchester.
An extra £5 million was committed in the Council’s budget for 2025/26 into services to tackle fly tipping, litter and making the city clean, green and tidy.
With the GBSC launch having taken place for the first time ever in Boggart Hole Clough, even more volunteers signed up to wipe clean last year’s incredible turn out; achieving 105 equipment requests, 2,016 loaned litter picks and over 100 litter picks that took place in and round Manchester forging new connections while keeping the city clean.
The Great British Spring runs from 21 March-6 April.
