The Duchess of Cornwall visits Beckton

Mayor Sir Robin Wales joined The Duchess of Cornwall in Beckton on Thursday to launch a clean up campaign that is encouraging residents to take responsibility for keeping their neighbourhoods clean and tidy.

The Duchess and Sir Robin met residents from the Winsor Park estate who have volunteered to take part in litter picks run by charity CleanupUK as part of a Beautiful Boroughs project across five Olympic host boroughs.

Sir Robin and the Duchess, who is President of the organisation, also met children from Gallions Primary School who sang a song about recycling. The Duchess attached an empty packet of instant coffee to a piece of artwork they had made out of rubbish.

Sir Robin said: "We want residents to be proud of their neighbourhood, which is why we continue to invest in making our streets cleaner. Newham has been running volunteering programmes for years and this is an ideal project to demonstrate why we think it is important.

"We know that people copy behaviour that they commonly see and dropping litter is a prime example of this. We must be a resilient community that challenges such destructive behaviour."