THE leader of Salisbury City Council says there is a need to reintroduce some civic pride back into the city and aims to do so by tackling the "scourge of litter".

Councillor Matthew Dean says the council will look at litter being caused by fly-tipping, retail businesses and local residents.

Speaking at Thursday's Salisbury Area Board, he said: "I'm absolutely determined [to tackle the problem], the cleanliness of our city centre is one of the things I want the new council to be judged on. There is a feeling that we need to reintroduce a bit of civic pride back into the place.

"On the doorstep in the elections it was the number one issue for significant parts of the city."

He added: "We've got a lot of different ideas on how we are to tackle the litter, some of them are inevitably going to involve spending money, a lot of it is around working with Wiltshire Council and local businesses.

"I'm going to be producing a litter action plan in the next three months and that is going to be agreed by a working group of the council chaired by councillor Sven Hocking."

Steve Godwin from the Business Improvement District told councillors businesses were pleased that progress was being made in areas over street drinking, CCTV and litter.

He said: "I'm pleased to say things seem to be coming together quite nicely in the city, with a strong leadership on the city council, with Wiltshire Council and the police.

"Our businesses have met with those bodies and seem to be a lot happier that they have been listened to and there seems to be progress. It's great to actually know that things are moving on in the right way."