Member Article

Manchester's streets get a Christmas clean-up

A new partnership to clean up Manchester city centre’s shopping streets has removed nearly a tonne of chewing gum and jetwashed enough pavement to cover more than 12 football pitches.

The £40,000 clean-up, jointly funded by CityCo and the Heart of Manchester BID (Business Improvement District) has so far covered around 90,000 sq metres of the city centre, using 10,000 litres of water.

The extensive cleansing work, which was carried out by specialist contractor, Ramora, also removed 790,000 pieces of chewing gum from the city’s streets.

The 12-month partnership, which started in June this year, and is in addition to the City Council’s street cleaning programme, covered the city’s retail core, taking in areas with high footfall including Market Street, Deansgate, King St, St Ann’s Square, High Street and Portland Street as well as side streets such as Police Street, Spring Gardens and Tib Street Square.

The cleansing helped the city centre look its best for events including Vogue Fashion’s Night Out in October and Dig The City in August, and will continue into next year.

Emma Cooke, Operations Manager for CityCo said: “This is additional funding which means we’ve been able to focus on the side streets as well as the main thoroughfares. Clean streets make a real difference to a city centre. People tend to have greater respect for the public realm and we find this reduces the dropping of litter, cigarette butts and gum.”

Councillor Pat Karney, Manchester City Council’s city centre spokesperson said: “The city centre has never been busier, so making sure it looks its best is a top priority for us. To have this extra resource from CityCo and the BID is fantastic. This is another great example of the public and private sector working together to make Manchester a better place for all to enjoy.”

Jane Sharrocks, Heart of Manchester BID Chair and General Manager of Selfridges Exchange Square said: “It’s important to make the retail environment as attractive as possible for people who want to come to Manchester to shop. This street cleaning investment has a direct impact on retail sales and helps give the local economy a boost. Retailers like us are really seeing the benefits of clean streets.”

Anne Latham, Store Manager at House of Fraser said: “Jetwashing the paving outside the store makes a huge difference for us. With our prominent location on Deansgate we always strive to improve the appearance of the store as it is an iconic building and a premium department store, we also put a great deal of effort into our creative window displays as this gives our customers and visitors to Manchester a great first impression .

Robert Harrison, store manager for High and Mighty on King Street said: “Clean pavements make the shopping area more inviting for customers and brings prestige to the street. This can only be a good thing for King Street and the whole retail core.”

Ramora has based a dedicated team in the city centre to carry out the works.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .