With the BRIT Awards in town, we decided Saturday 28 February would be a great day to join forces again with the Canal & River Trust for one of our towpath clean up days.

Huge thanks to the 25 volunteers who joined us as we made our way along the Rochdale Canal from Piccadilly Basin, through New Islington and Ancoats towards Miles Platting. Lisa, our head of PR, who helps organise the day with the CRT volunteer team leader Mark Woodcock, said: “We had a great team of people join us and it was good to hear their reasons for helping out – many felt a sense of responsibility as city centre residents to look after our canals. Equally, many passers-by, including dog walkers, families and cyclists, stopped to say thank-you to us as they saw us filling our bags with rubbish.

As we progressed slowly along the Rochdale Canal, it was great to take the city in from a different perspective and see lots of lovely pockets of nature along the towpath.”

Our next towpath clean up will be on Saturday 23 May and you can register to take part here.