The Isle of Man can stake a claim to having the cleanest beaches in Britain.

That's the claim from a local charity that has organised the clear up of tens of thousands of items of rubbish from Manx beaches during 2014.

Beach Buddies was founded by Bill Dale and had almost 3,000 volunteers in action last year, when it was registered as a charity.

Bill said: 'Our volunteers have done an absolutely amazing job in the last twelve months, and we genuinely believe we now have the best and cleanest beaches in Britain. Based on what we know from first hand reports elsewhere, the Isle of Man is a long way ahead of what is happening around Britain, so this is a claim we believe the Island should now be making and throw down a challenge to the rest of the British Isles.'

Volunteers have removed thousands of bags of rubbish and large items including oil drums, floats and fishing gear.

Bill said last January's storms were a blessing in disguise in terms of beach cleaning.

He said: 'Although the storms sadly caused major damage in some areas, the exceptional weather also unearthed large amounts of rubbish which had gathered under sand dunes. In the first few months of the year we collected huge amounts of rubbish which was clearly very old, some dating back a very long time.

'Without the storms, this would have remained hidden under the sand dunes, so in some parts of the Island such as the northwest coast, the weather actually helped us.'

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