Discarded dog mess bags, bottles and drink cans were among the items collected during a special spruce-up.

Bagfuls of rubbish were collected from Southwold Common on Saturday, April 23, as a clean-up event was held for the first time in a few years.

And organisers from the Southwold Common Trust, which looks after the patch of land, said it was 'heartening' to see that the public had largely kept the area clean and tidy.

With 10 people turning out for the Clean for the Queen event, they split up into groups of two to cover different areas of the expansive common – spending three hours filling up sacks with a range of items including crisp packets, fish paper wrappers, tins, dog mess bags, bottles and lots of drink cans.

Starting at Southwold Golf Club at 10am, the volunteers finished at 1pm at the Pit Stop Café – just as the heavens opened.

Will Windell, Southwold Common Trust chairman, said: 'It was great. We did most of the Common – from one end to the other – and while there were areas of concern, it was not as we had presumed, which is quite heartening.'

Mr Windell said that as this area had not been cleaned up for about four years, he was hopeful it could now become an annual event.

'We will now plan to do one every year,' he said. There were a lot of tins and bottles and certain areas where bottles had blown into the gorse, but overall we were quite surprised.

'The main problems were dogs mess – with doggie bags dropped into the bushes – the tin cans and bottles in the gorse, as well as things that had blown out by the car park.'

Keen to prevent dog mess bags from being abandoned in the bushes, Mr Windell said: 'I will go back to the Common trustees now and organise some more dog bins.' He also praised the support of those who turned out.

'I was really appreciative of all the volunteers,' he said. 'They took their time to do this. We are very lucky in Southwold as we do have great volunteers, and a number of people from Southwold and Reydon who do help out.'

? Got a Southwold story? Email simon.ward@archant.co.uk