These pictures show how much better a Harborough canal is looking now that it’s been cleared of a huge pile of rubbish – including human waste

These pictures show how much better a popular stretch of the canal in Market Harborough is looking now that it’s been cleared of a huge pile of rubbish – including human waste.

Our photographer Andy Carpenter took these photos of the banks and towpath of the Grand Union Canal just feet from the Greenacres travellers’ site.

The fly-tip has been gradually dismantled and removed over the last few weeks after Harborough District Council cracked down on the environmental menace in the middle of March.

The authority slapped two notices on the Canal & River Trust and four notices on the owners of two plots at Greenacres forcing them to eradicate the “blot on the landscape”.

The offenders faced being fined up to £1,000 if they failed to act.

“Thanks to our enforcement action the Grand Union Canal in Market Harborough is looking significantly improved with the majority of the fly-tipped rubbish now cleared from this area.

“We issued an Untidy Land (Section 215) notice which required the location to be cleared within a given timeframe,” said the council.

“We will continue to work with partner organisations to monitor the situation.”

Harborough council is now pledging to work more closely with other agencies such as the police, Environment Agency, Canal and River Trust and Leicestershire County Council’s Multi Agency Traveller Unit to make sure there is no repeat.

Lifelong rambler Peter Pollak, 75, told the Harborough Mail: “This is fantastic news for hundreds of walkers, runners, cyclists and all of us who love the Great Outdoors right across Harborough.

“I know so many people who have been put off from walking along that part of the canal in Market Harborough for many months by this horrible rubbish.

“It stank along there because so much human waste had been tipped down the canal banks – it was disgusting and totally repugnant,” said Peter, who represents the Open Spaces Society.

“And I want to say a massive well done to the Harborough Mail for raising this in the first place with the council and other agencies and making sure that this time they acted.

“This ugly eyesore had been there far too long polluting and contaminating our glorious countryside so thank heavens it’s finally been wiped out.”