Broughshane is now a gum-free village

This year villagers took the bold decision to embark on something never attempted before – the eradication of chewing gum from public footpaths.

The issue of streets heavily spotted by discarded gum has often been highlighted by prominent politicians including London Mayor Boris Johnson and has been raised in parliamentary debates in the House of Commons.

A very pro-active Improvement Committee in Broughshane, however, wanted to take action to solve the problem, rather than tolerate it, choosing to use the award-winning Xpelgum as a gum removal solution.

The result? Broughshane is now the first Zero-Gum village in Northern Ireland.

Committee Chairman, Wallace Penny said: “We are excited to declare the village Gum-Free!

“Our thanks to the team at Xpelgum for their expert guidance with what was our first community project in gum cleaning. No large equipment was necessary and no electrical power was required, thus allowing volunteers to carry out much of this work.”

Owned and produced by the Lisburn based company, Expelliere, Xpelgum has won two major awards for innovation – the 25k Northern Ireland Science Park Biotech Award and The UTV Business Eye Award R&D category.