CITY of York council leader Steve Galloway today threw down the gauntlet to his York Pride critics and told them: "Put up or shut up".

The Liberal Democrat chief hit out at Labour opposition "snipers", who complained streets were not being cleaned despite making repeated calls to the council.

He told yesterday's meeting the council's ruling executive: "I think the time has come for the (Labour) shadow executive to substantiate its claims.

"This is going to be a case of put up or shut up. We can't have this kind of sniping going on without some tangible and demonstrable facts behind them."

Coun Galloway called on Labour leader Dave Merrett to provide a detailed list of complaints, including dates, areas and a reference number, when gripes were officially logged on the York Pride hotline.

He told councillors that executive members visited most streets in York, and Labour criticism was "not in line" with their experiences.

"Standards are good, generally speaking," said Coun Galloway.

He warned the meeting that if the allegations did not stack up they could be referred to the council's scrutiny board for wasting council resources.

The row emerged as councillors discussed the findings of York Pride ward audits, outlining the latest stage of the high-profile bid to spruce up the city and stamp out litter and graffiti.

Audits have been conducted on every street in the city, and results will help identify York Pride funding priorities.

But shadow executive members, discussing the £80,000 audit, raised concerns about "poor street cleaning" in a number of wards across the city. Several streets had not been swept at all and ongoing gulley problems had been ignored, Labour councillors also claimed.

They also said there was a "continuing failure" to clean up after bin lorries in a number of streets, and added that the update report contained inaccurate summaries of some of the ward situations.

Coun Merrett today said: "We are not exaggerating and we are confident we have the information. Improvements have taken place but some things have not been sorted out."

He said there were still problems in some terraced streets regarding leaf removal and gulley cleaning, for example in Holgate Road.

Updated: 14:34 Wednesday, June 02, 2004