A GROUP of volunteers who tidy up Hereford city in their free time spread their message further afield after appearing on BBC Midlands Today.

The Hereford Community Clean Up Group were filmed live at Old School Lane playing fields last night for a news item about littering.

Newsreader Nick Owen introduced the item about littering and said there had been a huge response from viewers about litter in their communities.

He said in Herefordshire, the Hereford group are taking matters into their own hands.

Presenter Satnam Rana was joined by 30 litter pickers from the Hereford group, which was set up in August 2017 by Emma Jones and Andrew Wood.

Mr Wood was interviewed and he said: "We needed to start tidying up our city due to cutbacks by local authorities so we formed a group on Facebook and people started to join and we did more and more events."

He said that not only does the group pick up litter but they also clean up weeds and encourage businesses to clean up their car parks.

He said the group encourages: "More involvement. Tidier parks. Safer parks for their children which I think is what we all want."

Mr Wood said it is great to see young people getting involved as they will keep the city tidy in the future.

Campaign group Clean Up Britain has launched "Litter Kills" as part of their "Now or Never" campaign which has just started in Leamington Spa - each year the RSPCA gets 5,000 calls a year about animals injured by litter.

In Hereford there is a clean-up starting at Beefeater Staring Gate in Holmer Road at 6pm tomorrow and on Saturday at 11am there is The Big River Clean Up meeting at Castle Green Pavillion. On Sunday there is a clean-up at Belmont Road railings at 10am.