The first of the cars was crushed by Hazel Blears MP

A major focus is to remove unlicensed and abandoned vehicles from the road and the city council is aiming to work with the emergency services and communities to hit its target.

On Monday Home Office minister Hazel Blears started the campaign by crushing cars outside the town hall.

The scheme is one of the first partnership initiatives to be set up in Britain and the council is hoping it will reduce crime and clean up the streets.

'Remove eyesores'

The project entitled "Challenge Manchester - 100 days to a clean city", also aims to solve litter and graffiti problems as well as fly-posting and environmental crime.

As she crushed the first car Mrs Blears said: "Environmental crime corrodes the places in which we live and creates eyesores that blight our communities and damage people's quality of life.

"It can increase the fear of crime and cause anti-social behaviour to thrive."

Additional investment will come from the council and the government's anti-social behaviour unit.

'Improve surroundings'

Councillor Paul Murphy said: "We don't want dirt and litter to spoil our city.

"We all have the power to improve our surroundings so lets do it-we can make our city even more clean and green and keep it like that."

More than 150 community clean-up events have been organised for the public to take part in and the aim is to try and make sure all residents believe it is socially unacceptable to drop litter, for example.

Other cities are expected to follow Manchester's lead later this year, by setting up similar schemes.