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Council to act on chewing gum and revellers’ mess thanks to daily’s campaign

A council is to prioritise removing chewing gum and cleaning up after night-time revellers as it continues to take action on a regional daily’s campaign.

Sunderland City Council has reaffirmed its commitment to making the Sunderland Echo’s patch a cleaner, more attractive and vibrant place to be as a result of the newspaper’s Clean Streets campaign.

The campaign, launched last year, saw the authority invest an additional £460,000 into frontline environmental services in April.

So far 36 streets in the city have been hot washed and scrubbed clean to tackle staining, gum build-up and graffiti.

Sunderland streets 1

The announcement of the launch of the campaign’s latest phase provided a splash for the Echo on Thursday, pictured above.

The council’s work will now focus on removal of discarded chewing gum and cleaning up after night-time revellers before for the start of business the following day.

Councillor Amy Wilson, the authority’s cabinet member for environment and transport, said: “We want our city centre to be a clean, green and attractive place that people will want to spend time in and keep coming back to time after time.

“The first phase of the clean up has helped raise awareness of this and helped get the message across that this is something we can only hope to achieve if we all work together to keep the city centre clean.

“We’re lucky to have a really dedicated city centre cleansing team. We’ve also had a huge amount of support for the clean up from the public, our partners at Sunderland Business Improvement District (BID), volunteers and from businesses across the city over the last six months.

“The message does seem to be getting across that we all have a responsibility to keep our city clean and that if people persist in dropping litter, those irresponsible few who spoil it for everyone else can expect to be fined for their actions.”