HILLINGDON has been praised by the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone for taking part in a special week-long crackdown on graffiti as part of a campaign to tackle environmental crime in the capital.

The problems of litter, graffiti and fly-tipping are regularly high on the list of concerns of Londoners.

So Capital Standards - a group of 28 London boroughs set up to tackle problems such as litter, fly-tipping and flyposting - and the Mayor of London have responded to these concerns with a campaign aimed at tackling environmental crime.

The year-round work culminates in a week of activity specifically targeting at identifying and eliminating graffiti.

The activities that are taking place this week, across the Capital Standards boroughs, aim to highlight that graffiti is a criminal offence, is costly to remove and has a real impact on the perception of an area.

Mr Livingstone said: "Our polling consistently shows that living in a clean city is a priority for Londoners.

"And I want to congratulate the organisations and people in Hillingdon for the work that they are doing to clean up their streets.

"The aim of this week of action to tackle graffiti shows that environmental crime will not be tolerated within Hillingdon and other Capital Standards boroughs.

"I also want to send a strong message to Barnet, Bromley, Enfield, Kensington & Chelsea and Redbridge who have so far refused to take part in this London-wide clean-up.

"Their absence from this campaign is just not good enough - Londoners expect a cleaner city."

The graffiti awareness week started on Monday. Capital Standards is a multi-agency body including the boroughs, ENCAMS, the Environment Agency, councils, the Mayor of London, police, fire and emergency planning authority, Transport for London, local government offices and cleansing contractors.