BLACKPOOL tax payers are picking up the tab for litter collection, and the Tidy Britain Group want to do something about it.

The annual bill for cleaning up the streets in town is a whopping £1,274,000 per year but the National Spring Clean campaign aim to clean up the resort for free throughout April.

And with council help they aim to educate people into binning their waste.

With an army of volunteers the Tidy Britain Group are set to sweep through the town's streets gathering people to help them clean up the area.

Assistant director of cleansing and catering, David Dixon-Smith, said the council was always ready to act in partnership with any group aiming to improve the environment of the town. "This isn't just a problem in Blackpool. Litter is a problem across the whole country, but because we have more visitors, we get more than our fair share," he said.

When asked about dealing with the problem of people who deliberately drop litter in the streets, Mr Dixon-Smith said that there was a problem of how to tackle them. "It is actually very hard to get a successful prosecution against someone, so we are very keen on educating people and getting into schools to talk to children." Education is also one of the driving forces of the Tidy Britain Group, now in its tenth year.

They not only clean up litter but aim to highlight the wider social problems that litter causes.

As well as making the streets look unsightly, rubbish can also put businesses off locating in Blackpool as well as causing an increase in the population of rats and other vermin.

Professor Graham Ashworth, director general of the Tidy Britain Group, feels passionately about purging the streets of litter and the louts who cause it.

"I urge everyone in Blackpool to get involved, or at the very least heed the National Spring Clean message.

"Litter is ruining your environment and burning a hole in your pocket. So get a grip on it now." To join in, freephone 0800 783 7838.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.