Grant to help rid pavements of chewing gum

Cleaning up chewing gum costs councils across the UK an estimated £7m a year

North Yorkshire Council has been awarded further funding to tackle the scourge of chewing gum on the region's pavements.

The £27,500 grant, from the government's national Chewing Gum Task Force, will be used to clean up the streets of Northallerton, Scarborough and Selby.

Last year, the council successfully bid for an initial £27,500, which is the maximum that can be awarded. It has been used to target Malton and other areas of Scarborough.

A further bid will be made next year with the aim of cleaning up hotspot areas in Harrogate and Skipton.

North Yorkshire Council's executive member for managing our environment, Richard Foster, said: "It will always be better if people put their gum in a bin, but unfortunately it is a persistent and unsightly problem that affects the look and feel of our communities."

He said the funding enabled targeted action and the council was "committed to creating cleaner, more welcoming town centres".

The Chewing Gum Task Force grant scheme was established by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and is run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

It is open to councils across the UK to carry out clean-ups and invest in long-term behaviour change to prevent gum from being dropped in the first place.

North Yorkshire Council is one of 52 local authorities to have successfully applied for the funding.

Estimates suggest that the annual chewing gum clean-up cost for councils in the UK is about £7m and, according to Keep Britain Tidy, about 77% of England's streets and 99% of retail sites are stained with gum.

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