More than 60 volunteers from Manchester city centre businesses joined forces last Thursday (21 March) to help spruce up the city centre in support of Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean campaign.
Organised by CityCo and Manchester City Centre Business Improvement District (BID), in partnership with Manchester City Council, groups took to the streets around St Ann’s Square, Market Street, Exchange Square, Cross Street and Thomas Street to litter-pick, remove stickers and jet-wash away chewing gum stains with a new ‘zapping’ machine.
The clean-up also saw new hanging baskets added to Market Street and the replanting of seating planters on Cross Street with a range of sensory plants and pollinators.
Other activity included lending a hand with some gardening activities with the Sackville Gardens Meet the Friends Group, who volunteer to keep our city centre clean and green and helping to deliver the ‘Bin the Butt’ campaign on New Cathedral Street to raise awareness of the impact of cigarette litter.
Businesses taking part included Bruntwood, McDonalds, Natwest, Barclays, Manchester Arndale, Metro Bank and Selfridges.
Councillor Lee-Ann Igbon, Executive Member for Vibrant Neighbourhoods said: “It is wonderful to see so many people taking pride in their city, working together to make a real difference. We all want to enjoy the benefits of living in a cleaner and greener city and what better way to get together as a community than to litter pick and take pride in our local environment. A big thank you to everyone involved.”
David Allinson, Centre Director of Manchester Arndale said: “The Manchester Arndale team works closely with CityCo and Manchester City Centre BID and anything we can do to help improve the street environment and visitor experience, we support.”
Manchester City Centre BID runs an additional city centre cleaning service (on top of existing Manchester City Council services) on behalf of businesses. Yesterday’s Keep Britain Tidy event was another team effort to help ‘Keep Manchester Tidy’.
Keep Britain Tidy aims to inspire people to eliminate litter now and for future generations. Back for its ninth year, the Great British Spring Clean is the nation’s biggest mass-action environmental campaign and takes place from 15 – 31 March 2024. In 2023 volunteers pledged to pick more than 400,000 bags of litter.
