Flintshire County Council has completed plans to remove chewing gum from streets in the area.

This comes after the council received a £27,500 grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force earlier this year.

The council was one of 54 across the UK to successfully apply for the funds, which are aimed at cleaning gum off pavements and preventing future littering.

The cleansing teams have spent the last few months removing chewing gum from pavements and installing signage to deter people from littering.

The Chewing Gum Task Force is funded by major gum manufacturers, including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle, with an investment of up to £10 million spread over five years.

The task force was established by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and is run by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.

The grant scheme is open to councils across the UK who wish to clean up gum in their local areas and invest in long-term behaviour change to prevent gum from being dropped in the first place.

Councillor Glyn Banks, cabinet member for streetscene and transportation, said: "The teams have achieved fantastic results in high-footfall areas of Flint, Mold, Buckley, Broughton, Saltney, Talacre, Ewloe, and Queensferry this year, and in Holywell, Queensferry, and Shotton last year.

"If successful with future bids, we hope to extend the programme to side streets off the main roads going forward."

Estimates suggest the annual clean-up cost of chewing gum for councils in the UK is around £7 million.

According to Keep Britain Tidy, around 77 per cent of England’s streets and 99 per cent of retail sites are stained with gum.

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Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said: "Thankfully the majority of people who chew gum dispose of it responsibly.

"But for those who don’t, cleaning gum and the resulting staining it causes off our pavements costs councils millions of pounds every year.

"We know this issue won’t be solved overnight, even in areas where the gum has been cleaned up, but we’re confident that with innovation, research and small behaviour changes provided through the Chewing Gum Task Force, together we can tackle this sticky issue."

By combining targeted street cleaning with specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum, participating councils last year achieved reductions in gum littering of up to 60 per cent in the first two months.