ARK-T centre is a community-minded arts centre and the home of the Waste 2 Taste cafe. Along the side of the centre it has a playground space which is open for members of the public to use every day.

GoodGym was called in to give the play area a spruce-up - a task we had a bit of experience of from last year. The most obvious pair of tasks were to prune back the buddleia and willow which were eye-level hazards, and to sweep up autumn leaves. After a quick scout round we also realised there was plenty of weeding to do, toys to be put away, and there's ALWAYS litter to pick up.

The ploggers struck gold early, finding the ever-present pants on the lane outside Ark-T within the first 5 minutes. Lacy ones this time - fancy! (I'm honestly not planting clothing for you all to find on litterpicks - promise!) Other eagle-eyed litter pickers found stashes of beer cans, a high-heeled shoe, and whizzed around the playground, along the lane and plogged the surrounding roads.

Back in the playground weeds were weeded, bushes and trees pruned, leaves swept up and several bags of gardening detritus disposed of. We narrowly avoided weeding some ferns (thanks for the identification Bethan), and swept sand back into the sand pit area, rigging up our portable lights to keep going as the daylight faded.

It's often hard to have a sense of whether we've made a visible difference, so it was lovely that the returning litter picking crew commented how the playground was looking smarter and more open.

Great work dream team!