NORTH Ayrshire Council has received a £9,000 grant to help tackle the sticky issue of chewing gum on the area's streets.

The local authority is putting plans in place to remove the discarded gum that blights pathways after being handed the funding from environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

North Ayrshire is one of 54 councils across the UK that have successfully applied to the Chewing Gum Task Force, now in its third year, for funds to clean gum off pavements and prevent it from being littered again.

Councillor Tony Gurney, North Ayrshire Council’s cabinet member for green environment and economy, said: “We welcome the funding from the Chewing Gum Task Force, and we will use this to help remove chewing gum and chewing gum staining from various pavements that are an eyesore in North Ayrshire.

“The money will pay for a specialist contractor to deep clean the pavements in question, and also allow us to buy equipment to maintain the cleanliness of the areas.

“Residents will see signs going up soon in the areas that are cleaned to encourage people in the communities to dispose of their chewing gum responsibly going forward.”

(Image: NAC)

Estimates suggest the annual clean-up cost of chewing gum for councils in the UK is around £7 million.

Established by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, the Chewing Gum Task Force grant scheme is open to councils across the UK who wish to clean up gum in their local areas and invest in long-term behaviour change to prevent gum from being dropped in the first place.

The task force is funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, with an investment of up to £10m spread over five years.

Monitoring and evaluation carried out by Behaviour Change – a not-for-profit social enterprise - has shown that in areas that benefitted from the first year of funding, a reduced rate of gum littering was still being observed six months after clean-up and the installation of prevention materials.

In its second year the task force awarded 55 councils a total of £1.56m, helping clean an estimated 440,000 square-metres of pavement - an area equivalent to the Vatican City.

By combining targeted street cleaning with specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum, participating councils achieved reductions in gum littering of up to 60 per cent in the first two months.

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, said: “Chewing gum litter is highly visible on our high streets and is both difficult and expensive to clean up, so the support for councils provided by the Chewing Gum Task Force and the gum manufacturers is very welcome.

“However, once the gum has been cleaned up, it is vital to remind the public that when it comes to litter, whether it’s gum or anything else, there is only one place it should be – in the bin – and that is why the behaviour change element of the task force’s work is so important.”