LEADING councillors rubber-stamped plans to axe the borough's street wardens, despite opposition from primary schoolchildren and residents.

The council will replace the 18 wardens with a new team of 10 police officers and a further eight council officers who will clamp down on flytipping, graffiti and littering, cabinet members decided last night.

Cllr Afzal Akram, the cabinet member for community safety, said the wardens have done a "fantastic job" since their launch in 2003.

But he said: "This new team will be able to move around, at the moment the wardens are based in a number of wards but this service will be borough-wide."

The council believes paying for more police officers and "enviro-crime" staff will enable it to meet residents' expectations that knife crime and enviro-crime will be tackled more effectively.

The authority had previously piloted a plan to make wardens issue fines to people who commit environmental crimes, but this was ditched as the wardens did not "embrace" the powers.

The street wardens, who wear distinctive red shirts, have often been praised for their community work.

They arrange activities for children and older people, and raise money for charity, including the annual Give A Gift appeal, where they deliver Christmas presents to sick children at Whipps Cross Hospital.

Schoolchildren in a Year 4 class at Jenny Hammond Primary School, in Worsley Road, Leytonstone, were so upset when told the wardens were going they wrote letters to Cann Hall ward councillor Keith Rayner asking that the wardens be retained.

Ruth Deer, the pupils' teacher, said: "The street wardens are wonderful people, they come and help us when we take children swimming, because we often don't have any male teachers to supervise the boys.

"They also help with lunch and after shool clubs and arrange football sessions.

"The children are all on first-name terms with the wardens and they were in uproar when they found out they were going."

Cllr Bob Sullivan, chairman of the council's scrutiny committee, said the police youth engagement team will not be as successful at engaging youngsters as the wardens have been.

He said: "Wardens have years of history working with youngsters on the estates and they all know them by name.

"They are one of the most successful groups of people this council ever had."

But the measure was passed and the wardens will be redeployed or made redundant. The new teams will operate from October 1.