It may be the end of this year’s Big Spring Clean campaign but Nottingham City Council is calling on the public to continue their hard work all year round.

Over the 23 days the campaign ran schoolchildren, businesses, community groups, residents and students generously gave up their time to organise clean up activities across the city.

Since March 3, when the Big Spring Clean began, there have been approximately:

• Over 50 areas for environmental improvements identified

•858 fly tips cleared

•333 graffiti sites cleared

• Over 30 community group/organisations involved

• 42 neighbourhood clean ups carried out

• 17 school, youth and play groups participating

The Big Spring Clean team kick started the campaign by touring across the city, visiting neighbourhoods to provide information about how to get involved in the campaign and to encourage people to nominate areas for environmental improvements.

Representatives also visited schools to provide educational support for children to get involved with the campaign which resulted in 80 pupils from four city schools collecting more than 40 bags of rubbish by canoe from Nottingham canal as well as other schools spring cleaning their school grounds.

A highlight of the campaign was the launch of the new graffiti booklet and a two week action to clear up the city of graffiti, promote the initiative and seek support from business and residents.

The involvement and dedication of partners ranging from the Police, Crime and Drugs Partnership, businesses and community groups have stood out in this year’s campaign and have contributed to its success.

Cllr Katrina Bull, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Climate Change at Nottingham City Council, said: “Due to the overwhelming support we have received across the city we have managed to make a significant difference in the cleanliness of the city in a short space of time.

“Our thanks go out to the people of Nottingham who have got involved with clean-ups and suggested areas for environmental improvements, which together with enforcement activity have helped make the city a safer and cleaner place for everyone.

As a council we will continue to clean the city and improve waste disposable facilities as well as taking action against those individuals who continue to deface our buildings and do not dispose of their litter correctly.

All of these actions joined together and with the added support from all our partners will help us retain our status as the cleanest core city and contribute to achieving our goal to becoming the cleanest major city.”

The campaign has also been a spring board for other long term projects such as a litter awareness DVD highlighting the issue of children and young people dropping litter around schools, how it affects the school and the local community. The DVD will be used by schools as an educational resource and awareness raising tool.

A recycling DVD is also being planned to encourage recycling and will be used as a resource in areas where recycling schemes are being rolled out.