Volunteers make clean sweep of waterways

During the clean-up they also tackled invasive species that are spreading along the river banks.

A spokesman for the group said: “We worked with the River Stewardship Company, AMEY, Sheffield College’s Hillsborough Campus, Friends of Wardsend Cemetery and SPRITE (Sheffield Partnership for Rivers in Town Environments) who were all involved in volunteering to help improve the area.”

They added: “During April, May and June there were three volunteer sessions held between Hillfoot Bridge and Livesey Street involving more than 60 volunteers who gave up their time to help clean up the footpaths, riverbanks and waterways of Sheffield.

“Students learned about reporting environmental incidents, invasive species and freshwater invertebrates while the regular volunteers tidied wind-blown trees, treated Japanese knotweed and collected a mass of rubbish and fly-tipping from the banks and the river.”

They added that the site is in constant need of attention and suffers from large amounts of fly tipping and antisocial behaviour along its length.