SCHOOLCHILDREN have been getting creative while doing their bit to keep Dorchester clean.

Sunninghill Preparatory School pupils were circling any chewing gum with chalk on the floor in the Hardye Arcade in Dorchester.

The children, aged between six and 11, spent hours circling and drawing designs around the litter and the end result was a well decorated arcade clearly full of dropped chewing gum.

Dorchester Business Improvement District (BID) organised the exercise as an effort to highlight the problem of dropped chewing gum in the town and to pass on the message that a clean town will certainly help trade.

The arcade, off South Street, will get a deep clean on Sunday where professional cleaners will remove all of the chewing gum from the floor.

Phil Gordon, projects director of the Dorchester BID, said: “Over the last two-and-a-half years the Dorchester BID has done many deep clean exercises over Dorchester.

“This exercise showed how much of a problem it can be if chewing gum doesn’t end up in the bin.”

Sunninghill Preparatory School teacher Emma Sykes, who was helping the pupils in the exercise, said it fitted in with the nationwide Eco-Schools programme which is central to the school’s group Pupil Voice.

She said: “All the pupils here today are representatives from Pupil Voice.

“We want to make sure the community is a clean place free of litter.”

Sunninghill Preparatory School pupil Jenna Bennett, aged nine, said: “I think it’s good that we are helping to show people how much chewing gum there is because some people don’t realise.

“We are doing it to make Dorchester more of a happy place.”

Donna Strudwick, owner of Goldcrest Jewellers in the arcade, said she felt a cleaner arcade could improve business.

She said: “It will bring people to Dorchester if it is clean and tidy.”