THE Grand Union Canal spans 137 miles from Birmingham, all the way down to Ealing and Brentford.

David Posnett, 55, has lived near the canal in Greenford for the past 15 years and has been dismayed at the amount of rubbish piling up.

He told Nub News: "When lockdown started in March, things started to get worse and I didn't know what to do."

Posnett, who works as a computer programmer had finally had enough and in August decided to set up Friends of Grand Union Canal with the aim of cleaning up the canal.

"The Facebook group has grown an unbelievable amount in only a few months, we have nearly 3,000 members and they're all very keen to help out," he added.

Posnett organises litter picking 'events' where members go to the canal and pick up any rubbish they can find.

He said: "We've developed a really good relationship with both the Canal and River Trust but also with Ealing Council.

"The Council agreed that they would take all the rubbish we collected, which was great because we collected tonnes.

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"The Canal and River Trust allow us to use their boats to fill them up with rubbish, we collected 800 bags of rubbish in one month.

"They've even suggested training me up to learn how to drive the boats so I can just take one when we need it and clean up the rubbish without having to take the workers away from other maintenance jobs."

Posnett is very proud of the work Friends of Grand Union Canal have done across the six or so miles in Ealing and across the entirety of the canal as a whole.

"We actually have members across the length of the canal, in Slough, Oxford and even Birmingham.

"We've only got one environment, we've got to look after it and it's encouraging to see how many people want to help."