Stevenage Borough Council has received nearly £15,000 to deal with discarded chewing gum on the streets.

The funding – a £14,528 grant from the Chewing Gum Task Force and administered by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy – is designed to help councils clean up gum and reduce gum littering.

In a bid to tackle the issue, Stevenage Council is devising a strategy to scrub off the chewing gum from pavements in the borough.

This bid has placed the council among 54 others who have successfully landed funding from the Task Force, now in its third year.

Councillor Simon Speller said: "Chewing gum littering is a blight on our town and cleaning it up wastes valuable money that could be better spent elsewhere.

"This funding will enable us to clean up areas where this is a particular issue and raise awareness of the importance of disposing of chewing gum in the right way – which is in a bin, or wrapping it in tissue until you can find one."

The Task Force is funded by major gum manufacturers including Mars Wrigley and Perfetti Van Melle and is reported to have an investment ceiling of £10 million over five years.