PHP if else statement producing unwanted line breaks - php

Question

I'm using a PHP if else statement to ignore a custom field 'thingstodo' if it's empty. I have got the following code to work but it's putting unwanted line-breaks after every paragraph tag in my content. Where am I going wrong?
<?php if (get_field('gettingthere')): ?>
<div class="inprofile3col">
<h2>Getting there</h2>
<span class="content">
<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'gettingthere', true); ?>
</span>
<?php endif; ?>
<!-- ends Getting there -->
<!-- Things to do begins -->
<?php if (get_field('thingstodo')): ?>
<h2>Things to do</h2>
<?php endif; ?>
<span class="content">
<?php
$value = get_field('thingstodo');
if ($value) {
echo $value;
} else {
echo '';
}
?>
</span>
</div>

Answer 1

Here
<span class="content">
<?php
$value = get_field('thingstodo');
if ($value ) {echo $value ;} else {echo '';}
?>
</span>
you still have an output if the field is empty: the empty span-tag:
<span class="content">
echo '';
</span>

Answer 2

You should remove line breaks from thingstodo and avoid empty html tags. Here is the updated mark up:
<?php if( get_field('gettingthere') ): ?>
<div class="inprofile3col">
<h2>Getting there</h2>
<span class="content">
<?php echo get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'gettingthere', true ) ; ?>
</span>
<?php endif; ?>
<!-- ends Getting there -->
<!-- Things to do begins -->
<?php if( get_field('thingstodo') && !empty(trim(get_field('thingstodo')))) { ?>
<h2>Things to do</h2>
<span class="content">
<?php
$value = preg_replace('/\s\s+/',' ',trim(get_field('thingstodo')));
if ($value) {echo $value ;} else {echo '';}
?>
</span>
<?php } ?>
</div>