Mobile phone technology will help to clean up Medway from next month.

The new application, or app, for mobile smartphones will allow users to take photographs of fly-tipping, graffiti, pot holes or even broken street lights that are blighting their area.

The photographs are immediately sent to the council and handed over to the Customer First department for community teams to deal with.

Pictures will also automatically appear on the Love Clean Streets website - where residents will be able to track other reported issues including how long they take to be resolved.

Although the new technology will cost Medway Council £7,500 a year to set-up and run, it has argued the app will pay for itself by saving time and reducing paperwork.

A council spokesman said at present any issues reported to the council take about 20 minutes to be logged onto their computer system.

The Love Medway app, which will be available to smartphone users from next month, will take 40 seconds to carry out the same

process.

Cllr Mike O'Brien, the council's portfolio holder for community safety and enforcement, said: "The Love Medway application will revolutionise the way residents are able to report environmental issues and the way our staff deal with them. For the first time residents will also be able to follow what the council is doing to keep Medway clean and green.

"By signing up to the Love Clean Streets website they will be able to see how quickly we deal with those environmental issues that can so ruin the appearance of our streets and parks."

Medway Council is the first in Kent to sign up to the Love Clean Streets scheme, first seen in the London borough of Lewisham and now widely used in the capital.

Smartphones are more advanced mobile telephones using programmes and operating systems similar to hand-held computers.

Love Medway can be downloaded from the Android, Blackberry, Windows and Apple application stores.