The town council campaign, which is backed by the Mercury, now has stickers which will be posted on the windows of shops and businesses taking part in the scheme.

They feature the logo designed by eight-year-old Millie Barnes of Pickering Junior School who was overall winner of a competition among local schoolchildren to create a suitable motif. Millie’s winning design features a Pike and Ring, steam train, castle and church.

Now Cllr William Oxley and fellow members of the Pride in Pickering Business Engagement and Tourism working group will be visiting local businesses and inviting them to display the stickers with pride.

The stickers will also be available to householders in the hope that they, too, will be encouraged to “do their bit” for the town.

Cllr Oxley said: “The stickers are a way people can demonstrate their support for the campaign but we don’t just want them to stick them in their windows and do nothing.

“Going around the business premises gives us an opportunity to open a conversation with the owners about, for example, litter or cigarette butts on the pavement outside their frontages. If each cleared their own patch, the place would be a lot cleaner.”

The Pride in Pickering campaign is also aimed encouraging residents to show civic pride in their own locations and locality.

Cllr Oxley said: “Perhaps if one pulled out weeds from the pavement in front of their house it may encourage their neighbours to do the same.”

And he added: “We want businesses and householders to show their civic pride.”

The town council launched the Pride in Pickering campaign in May this year after members took a long, hard look at the community and found a number of issues ranging from litter, potholed roads and pathways and development of open spaces to improving the Monday market, town promotion and occasional antisocial behaviour, which needed to be tackled.

It set up four community working groups – Litter, Business Engagement and Tourism, Roads and Footpaths and Open Spaces/Town Entrances – as part of the action plan.

At the official launch the then town Mayor, Cllr Julie Hepworth said: “In every corner of the town where we have a problem we will work with everybody to put it right.”