Sunderland College students pitch in for city centre clean-up

Sunderland College has teamed up with the city council and Sunderland Business Improvement District (BID) for a three-day project to transform some of the city centre’s run-down corners.

Tasks including the painting of shutters, weeding and litter picking are being undertaken by the college students and staff across the three days, while the council focus on some of the bigger tasks at hand.

A lot of the work is focussed on Park Lane Market area, close to the college’s city centre campus, where the plan is to refurbish the market stalls and surrounding fixtures in order to stage a Christmas market.

Sharon Appleby, Head of Business Operations at Sunderland BID, said the work was intneded to address concenrs raised by city centre business.

“We were looking at what the businesses were saying, what they really wanted to happen and a lot of them were talkinjg about how the city centre looks, how it feels,” she said.

“Andy Bradley from the Bridges and I said ‘Let’s look for 100 things we can quickly improve.

“I was talking to Ellen Thinnesen from the college and she said, I like the sound of that, we can probably get involved,’ so we have got 3,000 students for three days to do all these jobs.

“It has been a huge undertaking to organise it but we have had support from a lot of the city centre businesses.”

Nineteen-year-old student Jea Nidea, from Ashbrooke, is among those taking part in the Park Lane market clean-up.

“We have been cleaning out all the stall for a Chrimstmas market and the Sunderland 2021 City of Culture bid,” she said.

“It has been hard work but hopefully we can improve the market.

“It has potential.”