M1 revealed as Britain’s most littered motorway
The M1 has been named Britain’s most littered motorway[1] in a survey of the country’s roadsides.
Clean Up Britain, which campaigns to reduce litter, rated the road from London to Leeds as the motorway with the worst rubbish problem ahead of 23 others. The second-worst motorway was the M42, followed by the M25. The M6 was rated the least littered motorway.
John Read, the founder of Clean Up Britain, said: “Our research shows that the M1 is the most littered and filthy motorway in England, but frankly there is no shortage of candidates vying for that unwanted accolade.
“Literally from junction one in London there are large swathes of litter and overgrown bushes obscuring signs. It’s Britain’s oldest motorway and in many sections is very poorly maintained by National Highways.
“It’s a depressing and shameful experience driving on England’s motorways[2] as they are not only heavily littered, but strewn with filthy and broken signs, and wilfully abandoned metal frames, cones and sandbags.”
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Volunteers for the campaign group assessed the different roads and levels of litter, examining 50 areas of each motorway and including an equal number of slip roads, roundabouts, lay-bys and verges.
Each was scored out of four, with one representing “no litter” and four “appalling levels of litter”. These scores were then combined to give each motorway a score out of 200.
The M1 survey focused on the area between junction one just north London and junction 23 just before Derby. It scored 132 points, five points higher than the M42 in the Midlands, which connects Birmingham with Nottingham and Worcester. The M25 scored 125 points.
The M6 toll road, which runs from Birmingham to Wolverhampton[3], was deemed the least littered road in the country, with Clean Up Britain scoring it 37 points, nearly 20 points lower than the second best.
The results come after a year in which the body that manages the country’s motorways has struggled to reduce litter. According to the latest National Highways survey, the number of motorways and A-roads found to have little or no litter dropped from more than 60 per cent in 2021/22 to 53 per cent last year.
Litter strewn on the M1 means driving on it is a “depressing and shameful experience”, campaigners say
The government has made tackling litter one of the key aims of its “Plan for Drivers”, a wide ranging initiative to improve conditions for motorists.[4]
Under Rishi Sunak’s plans, camera enforcement will be rolled out across the country to catch drivers throwing rubbish from their car.
This would extend a current trial in the South East, which is using artificial intelligence cameras to catch litter louts. These cameras are able to pick out offences and automatically send them to an enforcement control room.
Freda Rashdi, National Highways’ head of customer journeys, said: “Littering is a social problem across the country and we’re working hard to tackle it on our roads.
“Our people are litter-picking somewhere on our network almost every day. To keep them safe we have to close lanes or parts of the motorway, delaying drivers and costing millions of pounds.
“We are also trialling AI-enabled cameras to gather evidence to provide to local authorities who carry out enforcement.
“But if people don’t drop litter in the first place it wouldn’t need to be picked up – so we urge road users to take their litter home.”
References
- ^ M1 has been named Britain’s most littered motorway (www.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ depressing and shameful experience driving on England’s motorways (www.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ The M6 toll road, which runs from Birmingham to Wolverhampton (www.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ a wide ranging initiative to improve conditions for motorists. (www.telegraph.co.uk)