Helston's councillors were quite literally looking trashy on Saturday morning as part of an awareness raising campaign in the town centre.

Town councillors dressed up as black bags and seagull proof sacks and covered themselves with rubbish while Councillor John Boase donned a seagull outfit to raise awareness of twin blights on the town and ways to prevent them.

Although it all seemed like a bit of fun, the event was organised by Councillor Gillian Geer to highlight the problems of people leaving out their rubbish to early on a Tuesday morning in the town centre, and not using the sacks, which tempts in the gulls and results in litter being strewn around the streets before the bags can be collected and disposed of.

Councillor Geer said: "It went really well, we created a lot of interest in the town.

"Hopefully we made one or two people aware who don't really understand how the seagull proof sacks work. because not everybody does.

"I think lots of people think you pay £3.50 every time the bin goes out, which you don't, and they are big enough to put a whole family's-worth of rubbish in.

"And we had a good laugh, that's an important point."

Councillor Boase, whose seagull suit was made at no expense to the council, was joined outside the Guildhall by Councillor Geer and deputy mayor Mark Upton, along with Councillors Nicola Roberts and Martine Knight, who all wore their outfits for around an hour on Saturday, from 10.30am.

The stunt follows discussion at recent town council meetings over how to tackle the issue of rubbish, which included Councillor Jonathan Radford-Gaby suggesting "one or two specimen prosecutions" to discourage people being irresponsible with their rubbish, and Cornwall Councillor Judith Haycock saying a mail campaign might help.

Councillor Geer said: "We have tried to reach a lot of people, we can do no more than that.

"We tried to make it of interest to people, but we need to reach the people who are the culprits.

"We may try a litter campaign but it is so expensive. I believe the people who are going to do it will do it whether they are told or not."

She said although fines might work, it would be difficult to identify individuals without raiding their bins or catching them in the act."

However she does hope that if enough people do get the message, they might dissuade their neighbours from bad behaviour.

Seagull proof sacks were on sale inside the Guildhall on Saturday morning, and can be bought for £3.50 from the town's One Stop Shop.