A council last night introduced measures in response to a critical report of its environmental services.

People living in east Cleveland are very dissatisfied with the overall cleanliness of the borough and the condition of some roads and footpaths, according to the report from the Audit Commission on the service provided by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

Low recycling levels in the borough were also criticised, although grass cutting and refuse collection services were praised.

Overall, the council was left with only one star out of a possible three.

Audit Commission senior manager Sarah Diggle said: "The quality of services is mixed and public satisfaction varies.

"Refuse collection and grounds maintenance are performing well, while others, such as street cleaning and road maintenance, should be better."

The council plans to improve the situation within 12 months by dividing the borough into seven geographical areas.

Each of these will have an environmental team and a manager who will clean the borough.

The council's cabinet member for environmental improvement, Councillor Barbara Harpham, said: "Our plans will mean local people having a bigger say in what happens in their neighbourhood and a better response to what they actually want.

"We realise that there are 20 different communities and the public should have a specific officer to contact locally."

Opposition leader George Dunning said the street cleaning problem stemmed from service level agreements between the council and housing association Coast and Country Housing, which took over the ownership and management of council houses in the area last year.

"There is obviously room for massive improvement here," he said.

"Residents just don't know who is in charge of their cleaning."

Nick Atkinson, director of business and property services for the housing association, agreed that there were some complicated areas of joint responsibility.

These included Marske centre where the flower beds and grassed area is cleaned by Coast and Country Housing, but the footpath surrounding them is cleaned by the council.

"We need to be sure that areas are not being cleaned twice, although we hope there are no areas which are being missed completely. " he said.