ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A dedicated Belfast "clean team" upped the ante before Christmas to ensure that all shop-fronts and facades in the city centre looked their best over the festive season.

The Belfast One team embarked on a Clean for Christmas campaign with a focus on shop-fronts and alcoves along with the removal of stickers and graffiti from street furniture.

The pre-Christmas campaign was a continuation of work carried out throughout 2023 in which the team removed more than 1,000 items of graffiti and spent over 400 additional hours removing gum.

Operations manager of Belfast One Eimear McCracken said: "Working alongside key statutory bodies our focus is to enhance and create a vibrant, safe and welcoming city centre.

"We are delighted that the clean team continues to contribute positively towards promoting Belfast city centre as a place where people want to live, work and visit."

Belfast One partnered with McQuillan Companies in 2017 to set up its service, which aims to help businesses with the daily challenges posed by waste deposited on their doorsteps. The team cleans up items such as broken glass, fast food wrappers, cigarette butts and unsanitary waste - all examples of the types of detritus companies face when arriving at their premises in the mornings.

Belfast One works closely with Belfast City Council to ensure that it enhances the service provided by the council rather than duplicating it.

The team also works in partnership with the Welcome Organisation, a Belfast-based charity that provides services for the homeless. Belfast One operatives alert the charity's outreach service when they come across people sleeping rough, allowing the organisation to provide a faster response to those who need its services.