EDINBURGH'S streets have been given their highest-ever cleanliness rating by an environmental watchdog.
Keep Scotland Beautiful officers secretly inspected hundreds of roads last month and rated the Capital ahead of rival Scottish cities.
The result comes in the wake of an Audit Scotland report last month, which branded the city's streets as the wo
rst in Scotland.
However, the Audit Scotland inspectors visited Edinburgh more than a year ago, and council chiefs claim a raft of new measures have since brought improvements.
The Keep Scotland Beautiful team awarded a score of 70 on the Cleanliness Index Monitoring System (CIMS) - ahead of Glasgow and Aberdeen, which both registered 66. Litter fines and the high-profile Keep Edinburgh Clean campaign were cited as two factors behind the increase.
John Summers, chief executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, today praised the record score, adding that he believed Edinburgh had levelled at around 65 in recent years. Only eight years ago, the city was registering a lowly 57.
Mr Summers added: "It is great credit to the council and the citizens of Edinburgh that the independent monitoring of the cleanliness of the city by Keep Scotland Beautiful has resulted in its best ever cleanliness score.
"A cleaner Edinburgh benefits tourism, businesses and the well-being of its residents and I look forward to this standard being maintained and improved on."
A team of inspectors used a computer to randomly select five streets from each of the 58 council wards. The roads were all graded A through D - with A being no litter and D being heavily littered. The surveys look at a wide range of environmental issues, including dog fouling, vandalism, graffiti, weeds, fly-posting and fly-tipping, as well as the prevalence of different types of litter such as cigarette ends, fast food litter, and sweet wrappers.
The source of litter, and whether it is likely to have been created by pedestrians, businesses or domestic households, is also assessed.
The inspections are carried out quarterly, with Edinburgh recording a year-long average of 67 following the latest spot check.
Mr Summers said: "Edinburgh has reached its target to achieve the equivalent of all streets being a grade B or better, which is set at 67. It also had a few As and some Cs and Ds."
City environment leader Bob Cairns said: "We set a lot of store in these independent assessments. The Keep Edinburgh Clean campaign and the extra resources we've introduced in recent years are now bearing fruit. But I'll never be satisfied with our CIMS score until we reach the maximum."
Councillor Sue Tritton, Lib Dem environment spokeswoman on the council, said: "Parts of Edinburgh are undoubtedly much better than they used to be, but there are other areas, particularly on the periphery of the city centre, where more work still needs to be done."
Earlier this month, Edinburgh lost out to Birmingham in the battle to be named "cleanest city in Britain".
