THE city leader has kicked off a cleaning blitz on Brighton’s dirtiest streets.

Jet washer in hand, Green leader of Brighton and Hove City Council Phelim Mac Cafferty worked to remove stickers from lampposts in Queen’s Road yesterday morning.

The clean-up marked the start of the Keep Brighton and Hove Tidy campaign, which is asking residents and businesses to get involved to make our streets nicer.

A team of workers used high pressure hoses to jet wash bins, street furniture, lamp posts and pavements and painted out ugly graffiti tags on council-owned property.

North Street and West Street in Brighton are also set to be targeted by the team of Cityclean council staff.

Cllr Mac Cafferty said: “Over the course of the next few days and by the end of the week, we should see a visible difference in somewhere like Queen’s Road.

“The aim of the project is to try and lift up the city centre, which for many years now has sadly lost a bit of its pride. Hopefully we will be able to restore that by the end of the week.”

As part of the campaign, the council is asking communities across the city to consider joining the clean-up effort – including residents, businesses, volunteers, council staff, councillors, tidy up teams, beach cleaners and students.

Cllr Mac Cafferty added: “What we’re asking communities across the city is to play their part – in Palmeria Square yesterday we picked up about 20 bags of rubbish because we were deep cleaning the area.

“What I’ve also been doing is approaching all different sorts of organisations in the city – I’ve had a number of different businesses who really kindly said that they would play their part.”