The legendary Dick Whittington headed to London after being told its streets were paved with gold.

If he was to make the same journey today, many centuries later, he'd find the streets paved with chewing gum.

The famous City of London on Monday became one of the towns and cities in England to jointly launch an official campaign to reduce the amount of chewing gum littering the pavements.

Encouraging visitors and workers to discard of chewing gum responsibly, the 12 locations have joined forces with the Chewing Gum Action Group (CGAG) to tackle the problem.

CGAF is tasked with tackling gum litter in Britain, with funding coming from the chewing gum industry.

The campaign will see the chewing gum industry working with town and city councils to develop local initiatives to reduce chewing gum litter.

Results from previous work demonstrate the significant impact of the campaign on gum litter levels, reducing gum litter by half, and even higher in some cases.

In Wimbledon, the world famous home of lawn tennis, an earlier campaign saw a 67 percent decrease in gum litter.

Commenting on the launch of the campaign today the UK Government's Environment Minister Dan Rogerson said: "Discarded chewing gum is a blight on our streets and can cost individual local authorities as much as 200,000 pounds a year to clean up. Previous CGAG campaigns have been successful, so I look forward to seeing the results of this year's efforts."

Phil Barton, Chief Executive at Keep Britain Tidy which is a partner in CGAG, said: "As a group we are committed to tackling the issue of gum litter to help create cleaner, more attractive places to live and work."

The litter drive being launched today will see an advertising campaign featuring
professionally choreographed and highly innovative dance moves. The aim will be to encourage gum chewers to dispose responsibly of gum litter in a fun and engaging way or face a fine of up to 80 pounds (131 US dollars). Dynamic, brightly colored adverts will appear in a range of locations, including roadside banners, bus stops, lamp-posts and telephone kiosks.

Joining the City of London in today's campaign are areas in England, Wales and Scotland, including for the first time a university campus in Coventry.