A strategy to tackle the graffiti problem scarring the borough was unveiled to councillors and residents last week.

The plan will start on Tuesday and an anti-graffiti officer was taken on by the council's environment department on Monday last week to oversee the operation.

The first focus will be council premises, concentrating on the most visible and offensive graffiti, and the council will also make use of new powers allowing it to issue enforcement orders against private owners who fail to remove graffiti from their premises.

The next step will be a clean-up operation, and in partnership with the police, schools and youth groups, the council plans to look at ways of diverting youngsters from illegal graffiti ,, like the billboards at the entrance to Acton Park, which ex-graffiti offenders have been given free rein to paint.

Mary Tuohy, 55, who lives in Kipling Tower, a block of council flats in Palmerstone Road, South Acton, said action to tackle the problem was long overdue, as she often removed graffiti from around her home herself. 'It's disgusting that I have to do it myself,' she said.

'You take it off one day and it comes back the next day ,, it's an absolute eyesore.

'Sometimes I catch the young fellows at it and they just run off.

'We need to crack the cause of it.'

Speaking at a meeting of the Acton Area committee in Acton Vale Community Hall on Thursday last week, Sergeant Paul Lamb, community officer for Acton, said the police were working with schools, the council and park rangers to identify graffiti suspects.

He added that arrests were being made. The new strategy was revealed to councillors at a meeting of the full council on Tuesday last week and to residents at the Acton Area Committee meeting on Thursday by Councillor Philip Portwood, the cabinet member for community and health.