Keep it clean for the city...

If our Big City survey of last week revealed anything, it’s just how much people care about Sunderland.

And top of our readers’ concerns related to the cleanliness of the city.

Almost a thousand people took part and, of those, more than two-thirds felt the city was not clean enough. They described the cleanliness of the city as either poor or very poor.

Only a handful felt that the cleanliness of city was very good.

It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s also an honest appraisal of where we stand as a city today. The shocking results should act as a wakeup call to everyone who cares about Sunderland.

Today we launch our Street Clean campaign with the aim of turning that handful of people with a positive view of the city into the majority.

It’s not going to be easy, but we have to try.

And the core of our campaign will be about Wearsiders taking responsibility for the state of their city.

That doesn’t just mean cleaning up after themselves. We take that as a bare minimum.

We’re looking for everyone to play a part. And we’re open to your ideas.

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting areas of concern and what people, community groups and businesses can do to help.

Our survey recognised a problem, but only we can solve it.

Yes, the city council plays a key part in keeping our streets and public spaces clean and tidy, but it can’t do everything.

The government’s austerity policy has seen millions of pounds worth of council cuts that affected council services.

With passion, ingenuity and hard graft, the caring community of Sunderland can come together to make this work. Let’s start today.