THE STREETS of Southampton are being cleaned up thanks to input from business owners.

GO!Southampton's Business Improvement District organisation have provided £2,000 towards a month-long deep-cleaning programme as a boost to the City Council's existing street cleaning efforts.

Starting just this week (August 29) with the junction of Bargate and East Street, pavements, car parks, bins and street furniture are all set to get a scrubbing in a bid to make the area more attractive.

A combination of litter picking, hot pressure jet washing and the removal of graffiti will transform areas of the city in need of improvement.

A spokesperson for the BID said: "The work forms part of a wider programme of initiatives being implemented by Go! Southampton with the aim of creating a “Great City Centre Experience”.

Chair of the City Centre Experience action team, Spencer Bowman - who also owns Mettricks coffee houses, added:

“One of our highest priorities has always been to get the city cleaned up. We’ve spent hours walking around the BID zone, finding and mapping the problem areas, and creating a list of the work that needs doing. I’m really excited that this work is now underway and am pleased that the council is working with us to achieve our goals. Now we can start to look at how cleanliness levels can be maintained in the future.”

Cllr Jacqui Rayment, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at Southampton City Council, said:

“Both the vision of the Go! Southampton team and the funding it provides mean that additional resources, in terms of people and equipment, can now be allocated to activities to which the council could not have committed on its own.”

The BID's CEO Jon Walton added:

“A Business Improvement District is funded by the businesses within it, so it is our responsibility to use their money in ways which will maximise the benefits to all customers of the city centre. By making improvements to the environment, not only do we improve the experience for customers, we also make Southampton City Centre a more pleasant place to be for the business owners themselves and their staff. This cleaning work is just the beginning of a whole host of initiatives designed to get Southampton reaching its full potential.”

But manager of High Street's London Camera Exchange Carl Davies said although it's made a difference, it should be paid for by the council.

He said: "It looks incredible. It looks like it used to ten or fifteen years ago. I am for anything that makes the place look clean and tidy. There's quite a few empty shops and it's long overdue. We pay our rates so the council should do it - but at the risk of sounding weak at least it's being done."

The street cleaning began with the area around the Bargate monument, Bargate Street and the High Street between Bargate Street and East Street. It will continue with the Portland Terrace footpaths from Bargate to Civic Centre Road followed by the main shopping precinct, including doorways where accessible. After that they will move up Above Bar Street to Guildhall Square and back down West Marlands Road and then up to London Road - although the schedule is subject to change