THE city of York, which was once attacked for the state of its streets, has now been shortlisted for a national cleaning award.

City of York Council's cleaning team is in the running to take the prestigious Cleanest City Award.

York has made it on to an 11 entry shortlist in its first try in the competition, run by the British Cleaning Council.

Judges visited the city looking at how staff keep the streets clean, taking a "tourist's eye" view of buildings, schools and public toilets.

It's a far cry from last autumn when York Tourism Bureau chief Gillian Cruddas said efforts to attract TV crews to York were backfiring because dirty streets were being beamed into the nation's living rooms.

Council chiefs took the claims so seriously that an investigation was launched and scrutiny panel established.

Now the hard work appears to have paid off, with new initiatives such as river cleaning, town sweeping and dedicated trainers impressing judges.

Coun Bob Scrase, the council's executive member for local affairs and commercial services, said: "The inspectors for this award arrive unannounced and have judged York one of the best out of 88 cities.

"It's a great credit to all our staff that they have done such a good job, on what are very limited funds.

"This independent shortlisting tells us we are among the best and is recognition of the hard work that goes into a difficult job."

Coun John Galvin, who chaired the street cleaning scrutiny committee, said: "I am delighted and hope that some of the work that we did at the scrutiny board to look at the issues have been a success."

Mrs Cruddas said: "This is exciting news. Because York is effectively on the world stage it is important that we set very high standards of cleanliness in the city.

"Huge improvements have been made over the last year, however, we still feel there is more work to be done prior to the next judging session.

"We hope that further improvements can be introduced to ensure that York is in the best possible position to win this coveted award."

The city will now be subject to a further visit and examination by the judges before the final winner is announced at the Cleaning Show in March 2003.

Updated: 11:56 Tuesday, October 29, 2002