An environmental campaigner who has spent more than £60,000 of his own money sponsoring the clean-up of his local area believes he may have been deliberately targeted by a litterbug.

Danny Lucas is the boss of specialist fit and finishing contractor Lucas UK, based at the Invicta Business Park in London Road, Wrotham.

Last Saturday morning, a man driving a white Iveco open-backed truck entered the estate and was caught on video throwing empty cans out of his cab window.

Estate tenants later finding pockets of rubbish strewn in various locations around the area.

Self-made businessman Mr Lucas said: "There were old sandwiches wrappers, papers, beer cans – it looked like he had just taken the opportunity to scatter all the detritus from his truck about the place."

Mr Lucas believes the incident may have been "retaliation" after his prominent anti-litter stance was featured in the Sunday Times.

Fed up after failing to persuade Tonbrdige and Malling council to better sweep the road near his estate, Mr Lucas decided to do it himself.

For the past 22 months, once every month, Mr Lucas and a team of volunteers from his company clean the road, wash down traffic signs, and litter-pick the grass verges along a four-mile stretch of the busy A20.

He also launched an Adopt a Zone scheme to encourage other businesses to do the same.

We reported the launch on KentOnline in July 2021, but the story was picked up last week by the Sunday Times.

Mr Lucas said: "It seems a great coincidence that the council get highlighted by the national press for doing nothing and me having to pay and do it myself on their behalf and then within days our business estate gets heavily trashed by a stranger for the first time ever in 16 years."

He believes the littering may have been planned in advance.

He said: "At night the gates to the estate are locked. On Saturday, they are open in the morning because some times people work, but there are few people about at 7.30am when he came.

"He seems to have known this. He also mostly threw out the litter in places not covered by the CCTV cameras."

Although Lucas UK occupies four units on the estate, there are another eight businesses there.

Mr Lucas said: "If anyone knows who this bright spark is, please share the details.

"The landlord and tenants of Invicta Business Park will be happy to prosecute."

CCTV did capture the registration number of the vehicle, which turned out to be untaxed and without an MOT.