RESIDENTS in York and visitors to the city are being given the chance to report problems such as graffiti, litter and fly-tipping at the click of a button.

City of York Council has launched a new app through the Smarter York website allowing anybody with a smart phone to take a picture of issues on the streets and send it, together with details of the location, to the authority.

The information will then be forwarded to a street cleaner or council officer in the area to respond and residents will be able to check online to see whether a problem has already been reported, together with the progress on any query they make. They will be sent a picture once the issue has been dealt with as well as emails during the process of addressing it.

The app was developed after council leader James Alexander saw a similar scheme in operation during a visit to Lewisham Borough Council last year, and he said: “This is all about improving services while reducing costs, as it helped reduce graffiti in the Lewisham area by 73 per cent and fly-tipping by 53 per cent.”