A MAN is worried for the future of Bournemouth's much-loved goats after seeing plastic waste mounting along the cliffs where they live.

Bournemouth's West Cliff is known as a beauty spot for many, but in recent years, the picturesque views of the coastline have been 'overshadowed by a heap of plastic'.

Martin Ledger regularly walks along Westcliff on the way to meet his daughter for a coffee.

However, he has noticed rubbish thrown over the cliffs into the goat enclosure.

A coat, glass bottles and fencing are just some of the many items found strewn around.

Bournemouth Echo:

The 80-year-old from Alum Chine is ‘disgruntled’ at the sight of the cliffs which he believes could be harming the goats.

Martin approached the Daily Echo to highlight the issue of littering along the cliffs.

He said: “If you look down, there's tin cans and plastic everywhere, it’s dreadful.

“There's rubbish everywhere.

Martin, who used to work in agriculture, added: “I was brought up abroad, and I've run animals on a farm.

“So, I know that this isn't the right way to treat livestock.

“Cattle, goat, sheep, everything, we never treated them like that.

“It's surprising they're not ill because goats are sort of always looking for something to eat, and they'll eat anything.

“These goats have got to be tough to live in there.

“People get out of their cars, they walk on here, they have a kebab or a Big Mac and they just chuck boxes over the cliff because they see other rubbish in there.

“Every time I pass here, I'm totally disgruntled by what I see.

“They need to clear the plastic; this field is not adequate for them.”

Martin has suggested that a higher fence is installed to stop littering, but being situated in front of hotels, he thinks this may not be possible.

Bournemouth Echo:

Emma Teasdale, a project officer at Litter Free Dorset said: " For any animal to be ingesting plastic, I imagine that's going to be pretty harmful, especially soft plastic, plastic will stay in the environment forever.

"At Litter Free Dorset, we're always looking to reduce litter at source.

"So we're trying to always go to the source of that litter and stop it from entering the environment, essentially.

"So we do specifically work with businesses and we're really trying to work closely with kind of hospitality and food and takeaway businesses in particular to try and reduce the amount of food and drink packaging that's ending up in the environment by actually reducing the amount of packaging they're using in the first place."

The Daily Echo has approached BCP Council for comment but at the time of publication, had not received a response.