Doncaster's answer to the Wombles clean up town with huge litter pick

The Wheatley Wombles have been formed to help keep the area tidy – and take their name from the 1970s furry creatures living on Wimbledon Common who collected and recycled rubbish and kept the area neat and clean.

The group’s first ever litter pick saw one mum and daughter collect 50kg of rubbish.

A spokesman said: “We concentrated on the bottom half of our area this time. Lots of cans, fag ends and bizarrely socks, were the main culprits.

“Our lovely Town Ward councillor Gemma Cobby joined us too, which was a massive support as per usual. She is and always will be a massive contributor to our community.”

Organisers hope to have the next litter pick in three weeks time when they will concentrate on the top end of Beckett Road.

They added: “This couple of hours really made the difference in how our streets look. Please join us next time, if we all work together we can really make a difference where we live.

“Thank you all who came and participated. Also the lovely people who stopped and congratulated us on what we were doing. We hope you join us next time.”

The Wombles were a group of fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by Elisabeth Beresford and originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968.

Living in burrows, they were shown aiming to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways.

Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford's stories were primarily concerned with the lives of the inhabitants of the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London.

The characters gained a higher national profile in the UK in the mid-1970s as a result of the popularity of a BBC-commissioned children's television show which used stop-motion animation and introduced viewers to characters including Great Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco, Tobermory and Tomsk.

A number of spin-off novelty songs also became hits in the British music charts.

The Wombles pop group was the idea of British singer and composer Mike Batt.