HUNDREDS of people from across Oxford will help to clean up the city next month.

The annual OxClean weekend, organised by the Oxford Civic Society, sees communities, schools and businesses pulling together to clear litter.

This year’s campaign, supported by The Oxford Times, was launched by John Harwood, Vice Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire.

He said: “Dealing with litter is important because it degrades us.

“As well as being dangerous, it shows we don’t care.”

Last Friday, more than 200 youngsters from Oxford Spires Academy watched on as Oxford United player Damian Batt launched this year’s campaign.

Mr Batt said: “We like to do things for the community and I hate people who drop litter as well.”

Oxford Civic Society chairman Peter Thompson said: “We hope each year will be bigger because it demonstrates the commitment the community has to cleaning Oxford up.

“But in the long term we would hope never to have to do this again.”

Marukh Mahmood, 17, from Rose Hill, was one of the Oxford Spires pupils who was at the launch.

She said: “I am quite passionate about litter and not having chewing gum on the floor.

“We have been doing a campaign on litter at school and there has been a huge difference in the amount of rubbish here.”

Oxford Spires is one of 36 primary and secondary schools that will also be joining the Spring Clean. Last year, 118 community groups organised litter picks across the city, collecting 7,000kg of rubbish.

Geoff Corps, Oxford City Council’s streetscene manager, said: “We are great supporters of OxClean “The amount of litter that OxClean collected last year was down, which sends the message that Oxford is a clean place.”

Already more than 100 groups have registered to take part in this year’s event.. Those who have not yet registered can do so at oxclean.org.uk.

The event will take place on Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3.