A WOMAN who has cleared 25 bags of rubbish from a fly-tipping site in Knuzden has said that people need to take pride in where they live.

Deborah Brown, 43, has cleared rubbish from St Ives Road near Knuzden Brook and now hopes that more people will don gloves and bin bags and help pick up waste that has been dumped near their homes.

She said: “This is where we choose to live and raise our families. Let’s take pride and responsibility in where we are living.

“If that means donning your welly boots and your gloves to do a couple of hours or whatever then that’s what it takes.

“I’m not forcing it on anyone and I’m not shoving it down anyone’s throats, it was just I wanted to do that for me.”

Deborah has seen the waste regularly as she drives around and she said it has grown over the past few weeks.

Despite her valiant efforts, there is still more waste that needs to be cleared however because she ran out of bags and some of the waste contains what she believes to be asbestos, she had to leave the rest of the rubbish.

Deborah also said that she found a details of a person's name and address within the rubbish and has reported the detail to the council for it to be investigated.

She added: “It started off as a small amount of litter and it has grown and then somebody has done a massive fly tip.

“Every time I drive past it I grumble to myself and moan ‘oh that looks awful’, then I just thought, why don’t I do something about it.

“I’m driving past it grumbling, I live here and I’m proud of where I live and want to continue to be proud of where I live.”

Although some people walked passed and thanked Deborah while she was clearing the site, nobody joined her, however, she has said she believes this could be due to social distancing measures.

Earlier this year, the Lancashire Telegraph launched a litter picking campaign to try and keep Blackburn and East Lancashire tidy from waste.