The Trading Standards team at Barking and Dagenham Council has received their second prestigious award within a month as they were named Outstanding Team of the Year at the virtual London Trading Standards Awards.

The service has been recognised for their relentless work in trying to prevent the supply of illicit tobacco and shisha with the main aim of ensuring that the borough’s young people can’t buy tobacco.

Judges were impressed by the range of stakeholders the service had engaged with when trying to tackle these issues and were particularly commended for the joined-up work they have done with planning enforcement around illegal shisha venues and the work with the borough’s youngsters through the BAD Youth Forum around underage sales.

Councillor Syed Ghani, Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety said: “Our Trading Standards service do fantastic work in protecting our residents and I am glad to see that they are being recognised for this.

“The work they do to ensure that businesses are not selling illegal tobacco products or selling to people under 18 is invaluable, so I would like to say a big thank you and congratulations.”

Trading Standards officers run several test purchasing operations in the borough, and these play a huge part in catching the people and businesses breaking the law.

The awards ceremony took place virtually on Tuesday 6 December.