INITIATIVES to clean up the borough with a £1.5m investment have been given the go ahead.

The programme includes tree planting, grass cutting and new litter bins.

The largest share of the investment, £300,000, will be spent on parks where 50 benches and 100 bins could be replaced.

Play areas will be “refreshed” using £200,000 from the pot where alternative funding is unavailable.

A tenth of the money will be spent on tree planting with a further £80,000 going towards wildflower planting at the St Peter’s Way reservations.

The list includes spending thousands on environmental campaigns and behaviour change.

A total of £50,000 will be spent on refreshing the Love Bolton Hate Litter campaign and the same amount will go towards supporting the volunteers.

This will go towards a “more coordinated approach” to volunteer litter pickers and supporting community groups like Bolton Green Umbrella and Bolton Forum for Greenspace (BFG) with equipment, insurance and staff support.

However, the approved programme no longer includes hiring an education officer as previously reported by The Bolton News. This has been replaced by a one-off deep clean of road signs at a cost of £50,000.

The £1.5m pot, which will have some money leftover as a contingency fund, is divided as follows:

  • £200,000 - Refurbishment of equipped play areas
  • £300,000 - Park assets and infrastructure improvements
  • £50,000 - one-off deep clean of road signage
  • £150,000 - Tree planting including wildflower planting ?
  • £80,000 - Wildflower enhancements in St Peter's Way
  • £110,000 - Grass cutting machinery
  • £80,000 - Route optimisation software
  • £66,000 - Pedestrian electric vacuums
  • £80,000 - Hot water power wash
  • £50,000 - Refresh Love Bolton Hate Litter campaign
  • £20,000 - Focused campaign on illegal and trade waste carriers
  • £50,000 - Environmental voluntary sector