A VOLUNTEER has spoken of his disgust after he spent a Sunday afternoon clearing a lay-by of 39 bin bags of rubbish and at least 100 plastic bottles filled with urine.

Retired policeman Laurie Oliver, 64, of Usk, Monmouthshire, and member of Usk in Bloom said he and three other litter pickers took themselves along to the Coldra lay-by of the A449 because they were sick of the amount of rubbish strewn all over it.

The lay-by comes under the jurisdiction of Newport City Council, who have confirmed it is cleaned only twice a year.

Despite it being outside of their usual Monmouthshire patch, Mr Oliver, along with Chairman of Usk in Bloom Tony Kear, and fellow volunteers Tim and Jane Southern, spent two hours clearing the lay-by on Sunday, April 15.

Mr Oliver said: “The four of us regularly do litter rounds in Usk for Usk in Bloom. The chairman called me and said he was sick of the sight of that lay-by.

“It’s in the Newport area, rather than Monmouthshire, but the council have said they can only clean it twice a year. So we just decided to take matters into our own hands.

“It was just horrendous. There were over 100 bottles of urine there. We think they might have been thrown over the fence by drivers.

“We’ve contacted Newport council again because we had to leave the bags there, and they told us they would collect them.

“We left the bags where they were because we though it would at least show people the extent of the problem.

“The thing is that people see the rubbish at the lay-by as they approach Usk and it just looks so bad. It’s just a bad reflection on the whole country.

“I understand that council budgets are stretched but more should really be done to help clean up places like this. It’s a gateway into Usk and it definitely doesn’t give visitors a good impression. IT just seemed like the right thing to do. We do stretches further up the A449 all the time. So at least someone has made a start on it now.

“I’m retired so I’m often out by myself picking litter as well as with the group. If anyone is interested in joining us for our next litter-pick, we are meeting at 10.30am on Saturday, May 5, outside the Usk Co-op.”

A Newport council spokesman said: “We would like to thank the volunteers who undertook a litter pick to clear the lay-by off the A449 at the weekend.

“The council’s Pride in Newport team took away the 39 bags for disposal on Monday.

“The area is visited as part of the trunk road cleansing twice a year.”