High street retailers in Barrow came together in a bid to clean up their town and create an improved sense of community.

The Healthy High Street initiative was truly in alliance with the Big Clean spirit as shop staff joined forces to give the shops a good scrub.

The clean was organised initially by Simon Craig and Rebecca Jones from Marks & Spencer, who took their idea to all the big high street chains in Barrow and received some tremendous support.

Miss Jones said: "We have had so much help from Boots, Greggs, EE, McDonald's, Santander and Network Rail. The reception was fantastic we also had enthusiastic members cleaning from The Cumberland, Debenhams, Waterstones, Lloyds and Barclays.

"We targeted the big high street names because we knew it would be easier for them to let staff out for the morning to help. However, what we were really pleased to see was that private retailers came out to clean up their own shop fronts on the day when they saw us getting stuck in.

"That was exactly what Simon and I wanted when we started talking about the clean because if every retailer took a bit of pride in their storefront we wouldn't need to go to such drastic measures."

The team of 40 staff from the various businesses gathered at the Spirit of Barrow statue at the top of Portland Walk. They then split off in to teams and started cleaning. They picked up litter, washed windows, scrubbed benches and stripped the lamp posts of all their tatty posters and cable ties.

Phil Collier, chairman of the Barrow Business Improvement District steering group, was also involved in the clean up. He said: "Healthy High Streets is a great initiative. To see so many business owners, managers and staff undertaking a clean-up of the town centre last week echoes the BID result and confirms that there is a real desire to take pride in our town centre.

"Indeed, "pride" is the underlying premise of the BID and the collective desire among businesses to take our town centre forward."

The general feeling after the clean, when McDonald's supplied the volunteers with refreshments was that the clean had been good fun and the feedback from Barrow shoppers was positive.

Laura Moore, a customer service adviser at Santander said: "I had fun getting involved with the whole team. It's about time somebody took a stand and I feel like if we hadn't got together and done it, nobody would have!"

READ MORE:

Girl Guides get involved with the Big Clean 2016

Barrow junior school pupils clean up their community to help them become better neighbours

Barrow councillors hold a spring clean for Walney seaside banks