The staggering number of shopping trollies dumped in the River Irwell is raising the riverbed

Shameful photographs reveal the staggering number of dumped shopping trollies recovered from a stretch of the River Irwell during a community litter pick.

More than a dozen supermarket trollies were hauled out from the Irwell's waters along a section of the river running through Radcliffe, near Bury - with fears many more could be buried in the silt beneath.

One environmental expert claims the sheer volume of trollies present in the water is likely to be raising the level of the riverbed, which in turn could lead to a heightened flood risk.

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Stephen Frost, environment manager at the Angling Trust, said so many were found they were becoming impromptu 'gabions' - wire cages filled with stone used in engineering and landscaping to shore up or support banks of earth.

Mr Frost said: "Because a shopping trolley is pretty much an empty wire cage, when one fills up with silt it becomes a gabion. There were trollies on trollies. As they are filling up with silt, the level of the riverbed is rising.

"There's a knock on effect. I am not suggesting for one minute that that causes flooding, but it doesn't take an awful lot of thought to realise that it doesn't help. Theoretically, if you keep putting trollies on trollies, the level is going to rise and rise."

Around 14 trollies were recovered from a stretch of the river under the Pilkington Way road bridge in Radcliffe on January 28. Local groups the Radcliffe Litter Pickers and Little Britain Anglers were involved together with the council, with photographs also revealing bags and bags of rubbish were collected on the day.

Mr Frost said: "We have a campaign called Anglers