THE Grime's A Crime campaign has also seen the council chewing over how to tackle a sticky problem.

Chewing gum trodden into town centre streets across Wyre Forest has created hundreds of unsightly stains which have been literally blasted thanks to a £10,000 blitz.

Wyre Forest District Council brought in a national firm for two weeks to jet-wash old chewing gum from town centre streets in Kidderminster, Bewdley and Stourport.

The cleansing operation began each day at about 6pm after shops had shut up and workers were blasting away gum from pavements with specialised equipment throughout the night.

Cultural, leisure and commercial services department spokesman Simon Trickett said the project had been "very successful", adding another £10,000 had been set aside in next year's budget to bring back the machines.

Next time they will focus on Stourport and Bewdley, as Kidderminster streets received the most attention for the duration of first assault.

Meanwhile, three state-of-the-art street sweepers, which are worth more than £50,000 and were put to work in the three towns in June, have been making a big impact.

The sweepers, which are the same as those used in New York, Madrid and Milan, have proved so efficient they have freed up the council's old fleet of sweepers which have been put to work clearing leaves in residential streets.

"Leaves are obviously a big problem over the next few months," Mr Trickett added.

He said the council had also increased its rapid response to fly-tipping, and was dealing with reports in two hours in eight out of 10 cases.

And a recent purge to improve efficiency has cut the average response time to calls from residents to dispose of bulky items, with the knock-on effect being that fewer people are fly-tipping.