Youths and adults from different action groups across the area joined forces for a litter crackdown in a popular Denholme park.

The park has been targeted by members of the Making a Difference in Denholme (MAD-D) group and Bradford and Keighley Youth Parliament (BKYP) as a place in need of improvement. Attempts have also been made to eradicate dog fouling in the park, through a competition asking residents to design a leaflet warning about the hazard.

The clean-up took place on Saturday, with the help of equipment from Bradford Council’s cleansing department.

A Christmas arts and crafts session took place afterwards in the Denholme Youth Café, which is managed by MAD-D. Debra Peters, a youth worker for the MAD-D group, said young people from the group have identified a number of improvements they would like to see made in Foster Park and the clean up was just the beginning of their plans.

She said: “Twelve people collected over 20 bags of rubbish in the two hours we were there.

“The amount of dog mess there was disgusting, that made cleaning up particularly unpleasant, and the youths are appealing to residents to clean up after their dogs.”

Ms Peters added: “At the BKYP Shipley constituency conference in 2007 young people raised the issue of the park and asked for it to be tidied up.”