Guildford Borough Council Spent £6,000 Removing Chewing Gum from Pavements

Published on: 6 Jan, 2019
Updated on: 9 Jan, 2019

Chewing gum on a pavement

By Rebecca Curley

Local Democracy Reporter

Three Surrey borough councils spent a combined total of more than £18,000 last year trying to remove chewing gum from pavements.

Figures revealed as part of a Freedom of Information request show councils spent £18,840 removing gum in 2017/18.

Woking spent the most last year, with it estimating it cost £10,000. Guildford Borough Council spent £6,000, with Surrey Heath forking out £2,840.

Only three councils carried out the work with the remaining eight boroughs and districts either not having the data or not carrying out the work.

Woking Borough Council (WBC) is set to look at ways it can tackle the problem of people spitting gum on to pavements and streets when it meets with an environmental campaign group in January.

In Woking, the problem has become a matter for the council executive after a councillor raised the issue in October 2018.

County Cllr Ken Howard

Lib Dem Cllr Ken Howard (Woking Borough Council) put forward the idea to try and stop what he said was an “unsightly” and “disgusting” habit and reduce the amount of gum that gets stuck to shoes or plastered on the floor.

Speaking at the time, he said it had “been a bugbear” of his for a while and he wanted the council to look into providing more bins for people to ditch the gum once they have finished with it.

His motion was adopted by WBC executive at its meeting on December 6.

Cllr Beryl Hunwicks, lead member for waste and recycling and council officers will now raise the issue when they meet with Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, in January “to ensure that the spirit of the Keep Britain Tidy Campaign was being pursued in Woking”.

Cllr Hunwicks said: “We were very happy to support it. There are a lot of conversations that have been going on during the last year or so over various issues around littering in all sorts of areas in Woking.

“We do have a large meeting with Keep Britain Tidy at the beginning of January and amongst a rath of measures we will be discussing this.”

In 2017, the Local Government Association said it cost local authorities nearly £60 million a year to remove gum.

It estimated the average piece of gum costs about 3p to buy but can be up to 50 times that to clean up per square metre.

Responses to Guildford Borough Council Spent £6,000 Removing Chewing Gum from Pavements

Valerie Thompson Reply

January 6, 2019 at 12:22 pm

I’m glad the pavements will now be cleaner.

What about tackling the disgusting roadsides now. Everyone should lobby SCC highways and GBC to deal with the areas that they are responsible for. The A3 is just a continuous rubbish tip for miles and the slip roads are even worse.
- Jim Allen Reply
  
  January 7, 2019 at 11:04 am
  
  Sadly, Highways England has to effect lane closures to allow the rubbish to be picked up on the verges of the A3 and the GBC litter-pickers have to take a one/two-day safety course before they can do the work. “Elf and safety” at its best.
C Barker Reply

January 6, 2019 at 1:00 pm

I personally think chewing gum is as bad of a habit as spitting. There’s nothing worse than having to listen to someone chamming away on gum whilst in conversation. As for the disposing of it in the way of spitting it in the ground, for the taxpayer to have to pay to clean it up is nothing short of an insult. Tax the chewing gum to cover the cost of cleaning it up, that’s what I say!
David Smith Reply

January 6, 2019 at 8:43 pm

What are the point of these stories – is someone trying to expose GBC for spending what appear to low amounts of money on every day essential tasks to improve our environment? Will we be hearing how much GBC spent on paper clips next? Or perhaps photocopying?

If anything they’re making the council look frugal.
John Perkins Reply

January 7, 2019 at 9:26 am

Surely the point of the story is to support the council by showing what they are forced to deal with.

Time and money spent cleaning up after a few anti-social people is taken from something more worthy. A tax on gum could recover the cost of dealing with the problem and might reduce its severity. But it won’t happen unless enough people are aware of the waste.
Valerie Thompson Reply

January 7, 2019 at 4:02 pm

In reply to Jim Allen, maybe the people who have been given Community Service sentences could spend some of it doing the training for litter picking and then be supervised actually doing the work.

One wonders, sometimes, whether these people ever actually do anything meaningful for their punishment. Litter-picking would certainly benefit the community.

So the roads have to have lane-closures for a few hours. I think most people would be happy with this as long as it wasn’t during rush-hours or on bank holidays.
- Jim Allen Reply
  
  January 7, 2019 at 5:49 pm
  
  I have no control of Highways England Surrey County Council or Guildford Borough Council. My observations are based on my formal complaint and discussions with various yellow jacket wearers. Explanations come forward which are denied or covered under “secrecy” regulations practised by HE, GBC, and SCC.
  
  I note Keir, Highway England’s subcontractors, has to clean its road drains every five years. Thames Water doesn’t seem to clean any drain routinely for 40 plus years, apart from when sewers flood.