Keeping the borough clean and tidy is a job that street enforcement officer Rob Andrews loves - despite sometimes facing abuse, he tells Janine Rasiah

“My job involves everything from dealing with abandoned vehicles to untidy front and rear gardens, trade waste inspections and litter patrols.

“Most of time we are working with the police and we don’t tend to suffer much abuse. Instead we actually get people coming up to us and telling us how pleased they are with what we are doing.

“But there are definitely times when you do get abuse and you have to develop a bubble around you. “You are there to make a difference and make the borough a nicer place to live so you can’t let people bring you down.

“We have been fining people for dropping litter outside Barking station and that seems to be working and people are noticing that the place is cleaner.

“I’m proud of everything we do but one thing that springs to mind is when some illegal travellers came into the borough a few weeks ago. We started by issuing a notice and ended up having to get a court order to evict them. They were causing a lot of problems through anti-social behaviour and there was an awful lot of litter left behind.

“I don’t like vehicles and I try and use my pushbike as much as I can to give something back to the environment. I can get from one side of the borough to the other in 45 minutes which is much quicker than a car when you’re stuck in traffic.”