After sand having been laid down all winter, the streets of Portage la Prairie are in need of a sweeping.

Public Works Manager Brian Taylor says the city's street sweeper has been out since last week, clearing the sand from the roads, and he notes which streets have been cleaned so far.

"We've done Saskatchewan and Tupper North and South and 240 South has been done once, it'll need to get done again. We're also working on our priorities, which are all through town, and once we have that done we will get right into our residential area."

He explains until they begin their regular route, residential streets may not always be swept the day following garbage collection.

"[We're] just trying to get our initial clean-up done but once we go into our regular route then it's the same as the wintertime with snow removal. Please have your vehicles removed, off the street, in order to get the sweeping done properly."

Taylor adds they've been running the sweeper in two shifts and believes, at their current rate, they will hopefully have finished their initial clean-up of the city by the end of the week.