A Sussex town has been accused of having some of the dirtiest streets in the South East.

The Audit Commission report showed almost one in four streets in Hastings were classed as dirty, to rank it 63rd out of 67 local authorities which were assessed in the region.

But Hastings Borough Council leader Peter Pragnell has claimed its streets are no dirtier than anywhere else in Sussex.

He said it was, however, one of the council's top priorities for the year to keep the borough as clean and tidy as possible.

He said: "Hastings is not a dirty town and in fact it is a town on the up. If the town looks smart people will feel proud to live here.

"We have cleaning teams which go around every day sweeping the streets and picking up litter as well as emptying bins.

"I certainly don't agree that the streets are unusually dirty."

There was also bad news for Horsham, Arun and Adur councils which were ranked at 61st, 60th and 58th respectively.

The survey, carried out in the 12-month period up to March 31 last year, showed Mid Sussex, which serves Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath, has the cleanest streets in the county.

It ranked fourth overall in the South East after the survey reported less than 3% of streets in the area were classed as dirty.

It was followed by Rother in ninth place with less than 5% and Chichester and Worthing in joint 15th with 7% each.

The figures from each area were provided to the Audit Commission by the councils themselves. Each authority was then ranked by the GMB, Britain's general union, from the cleanest to the dirtiest.

The results showed almost 10% of streets in Lewes were dirty, followed by Crawley with 11%, Eastbourne with 15% and Brighton with 16%. Richard Ascough, from the GMB, said the region's streets had become cleaner in recent years.

But he said more needed to be done by councils to keep litter off the street.

Mr Ascough said: "Overall we are seeing a 14% improvement in street cleanliness across England in the last year.

"This is good news for our environment and it is a testament to local councils and their street cleaners.

"But there are still too many councils which are not putting enough effort and resources into keeping their streets clean - and that has got to change.

"They need to employ more street cleaners. This could be part-funded by a levy on fast food outlets where litter originating from their premises is so much of the problem."

Several restaurants and retailers in the county have been fined for leaving rubbish bags and food containers outside premises. Pubs have also been threatened with closure over cigarette butts left outside the door by drinkers banned from smoking inside.

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