CHEWING gum thrown on to Blackpool pavements is coming to a sticky end thanks to an ingenious machine.

Dubbed the Gizmo, the cleaner has been brought to the resort in a bid to clean up what has become a plague with streets riddled with discarded gum.

And the results speak for themselves with the treated areas rid of even gum which has been stuck down for years.

This week the Gizmo has been cleaning Church Street as well as Bank Hey Street behind Blackpool Tower - and it is working according to Blackpool Council's contract services manager Dave Dixon-Smith

"We have been targeting the worst affected areas as part and parcel of general street cleaning work," he told the Citizen.

"Similar machines were used last year and but the difficulty is time as we have had to close the pavements off.

"This machine uses a pressure hot wash to remove the gum and it is speedier.

"The amount of chewing gum on the pavements is an on-going problem so we have to redeem the situation as best we can."

The Gizmo was developed by Salford-based Burnaby Cleaning Company and uses hot water with variable pressure to suit the degree of soiling.

Technical director Bob Somerset told the Citizen: "We saw how much chewing gum there was on the pavements and wondered why no-one was doing anything about it.

"We worked on it for a long time and the results stand out a mile.

"There is a lot of call for the machine - we have worked at shopping centres, retail parks, leisure parks, supermarkets and everyone is amazed ."

While admitting it helped in the fight against chewing gum, Mr Dixon-Smith added that the public still had a responsibility to help.

"We can't give up on getting people to do the right thing and put their chewing gum into the litter bins or take it home in the first place," he said.

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