Surprise visits will be made by judges next month to help decide which town or city has the cleanest streets in Britain.
Ten city, five district and two borough councils have made the shortlist of the British Cleaning Council competition.
Formerly the ‘Britain’s cleanest city competition’, the first year of the new-style award, aims to give all local authorities ‘a fair crack of the whip’, with three categories: city councils, boroughs – including London boroughs – and districts. By combining both the perceptions of tourist visitors and government standards – the Best Value performance indicator 199 on litter and detritus – the BCC wants to allow comparison between authorities in different areas.
Birmingham, Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, City of London, Truro, Westminster, York, Ipswich, Lewisham, Braintree, Chester, Durham, Oadby & Wigston and Mendip are the contenders.
The ‘cleanest city competition’ was won by the Corporation of London two out of the three previous times the award was up for grabs, while City of Westminster was the other winner for the biannual award since the year 2000.
BCC spokeswoman, Eibhlin O’Somachain, said: ‘London authorities with large cleaning budgets have impressed the judges in the past.’ The judges hoped to have ‘even more’ entries next year from non-city councils.
Terry Collins, director of neighbourhood services for the City of York Council, welcomed the authority’s shortlisting, but vowed ‘to not rest on our laurels’. He hoped that a review of streetscene services due for completion this autumn would ‘result in improved service delivery because clean streets and publicly accessible spaces are a priority’.
Cllr Kevin Foster, cabinet member for city services at Coventry council, said: ‘We’ve invested extra resources to keep our streets clean in this year’s budget and I’m glad the benefits have been noticed. There is still some improvement to be made, but we are proud to officially be one of the country’s 10 cleanest cities.’