Hundreds of supermarket trollies dumped in Winsford Town Park

Friends of Winsford Town Park is asking local shops to take action after being left to collect hundreds of trollies which have been abandoned in the area.

Chairman of the volunteer-led group, John Malam, has come up with a few ideas of how to improve the situation.

He said: “Since Town Park was transformed in 2018, hundreds – yes, hundreds – of trollies have been collected by volunteers from the Friends of Winsford Town Park, The Winsford Litter Project and Winsford Town Council and pushed back up into town.

“Some of the supermarkets have trolley-lock systems, which lock the wheels if a trolley crosses a 'stop line', and most of the supermarkets buy in to the nationwide TrolleyWise service which retrieves stray trollies.

“But, despite these measures, trollies still end up in Town Park, where they damage plants, get thrown into the ponds, or are just abandoned.

“I would like to see the supermarkets collecting stray trollies from the shopping centre throughout the day and locking them all up at night.”

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Friends of Winsford Town Park is a volunteer-led group which helps keep the area clean and tidy (Image: John Malam)

Mr Malam’s latest appeal comes after four more shopping trollies were found at the park on Friday morning (August 25). 

Three of these trollies belonged to B&M.

Despite this, the discount chain has received no reports of trollies being stolen from the store.

A spokesperson said: “We were not aware that any of our trollies had gone missing in the local area.

“We’re grateful this has now been raised with the business so we can act accordingly to collate any that have been stolen.

“It is within our interest to ensure all our trollies are kept safe, and they are routinely collected from the bays throughout the day and locked up safely overnight.

“We’d kindly ask if anyone in the local area find a dumped B&M trolley to raise this with their local store or centrally with our customer services team so we can arrange for the immediate collection and return of them."

They added that they have now been in touch with the store to ensure the trollies are collected.

The spokesperson also explained that all the trollies have locks to prevent theft while the company also has vans available to collect any that do go missing.

The fourth trolley found on Friday belonged to Aldi, which opened on Dene Drive in 2021.

A spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear about this issue and would ask customers to return trollies to the designated collection points available at our Dene Drive store when they have finished shopping.

“When trollies are not returned, we work with our partners to collect them as quickly as possible.”