Graffiti footprints have cropped up across the borough leaving residents and shoppers baffled.

But the new street art is a Kingston Council ploy to encourage people not to litter the royal borough.

As part of the Cleaner Kingston campaign 40 stencils – including little footprints – have been sprayed on to pavements and placed in areas the council said experience a high volume of litter.

Some of the chalk-based stencils have messages saying “Your nearest bin is 10 steps away” or “clean streets – everyone’s responsibility”.

New Malden councillor Terry Paton, cabinet member for resident services, said: “The purpose of the campaign is to encourage local people to play a greater part in keeping the borough clean by refraining from a number of antisocial activities.

“The locations of these bins were carefully selected with the help of the waste team, and target hot spots with high volumes of street litter so as to make their use most effective.”

He added the cost of the campaign to the council was not currently available. Each sprayed stencil will be removed after six weeks when the campaign ends.