OVER 200 volunteers have turned out for beach clean evenings hosted by a Boscombe based surf shop.

The litter picking group from Sorted Surf Shop first ventured out on Thursday June 25, in the wake of the busy scenes seen at Bournemouth beach during the mini heatwave last month.

As part of their campaign, the group were due to carry a banner with the slogan ‘Don’t Be Mean, Keep Our Beaches Clean’ with two paddleboards between Bournemouth and Boscombe Pier, however the council’s major incident announcement prevented them from taking to the water.

Content and Social Media Manager at Sorted Surf Shop Megan Christopher said: “When all of our lovely visitors left our beaches in a mess, we were contacted by a local surfer to help run a beach clean at Boscombe.

“However, as we were about to go into the water with the banner, the major incident was called which stopped us, but we ended up hanging it on the pier.

“Lots of local surfers got on board with it and on the day of the beach clean we ended up having over 100 people applauding us and getting behind the idea.”

Having collected 150 bags of rubbish from Boscombe to Fisherman’s Walk in Southbourne their first time out, the litter pickers have decided to make it a weekly event and welcome hundreds of people to their evening picks.

When asked about the number of people who have coming along to the weekly litter picks, Megan said: “It has been so surreal, we were only planning for around 30 people first time around but last week we were more prepared.

“Some people turned up prepared with their own equipment. Everyone is incredibly passionate about it

“We got a great response from youngsters, they made up the majority of the group last week.”

The group meet outside the Sorted Surf Shop on Boscombe Beach at 8pm every Thursday, where they will provide bags, gloves and sanitiser to all participants.