The former Yorkshire Dales resident Bill Bryson, now president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, will appear on the BBC flagship Panorama programme tonight (Monday, August 11) to continue his attack on Britain’s litter louts.

Bryson, the best-selling American author, wrote his seminal Notes from a Small Island whilst living in Malhamdale. Although he returned to America so that his children could go to university there, he has now settled back in England and accepted the role with the CPRE because he was appalled at the increase in litter and fly-tipping whilst he was away.

Appearing on the Radio Four Today programme this morning, he blamed much of the increase of people eating on the hoof – or in their cars – and then discarding the packaging, often in often countryside.

His appearance wills spear-head the CPRE’s Stop the Drop campaign, designed to persuade people to take their rubbish home. Here in the Dales, the local branch of the CPRE is organising a campaign against the polystyrene trays used for take-away fish and chips which are virtually indestructible when discarded.