Students at a Smith's Parish school were praised yesterday for offering to make a goodwill gesture by cleaning off unsightly graffiti in their neighbourhood.

Whitney Institute principal Gail Graham said many of her students were more than happy to do some community service to help the area where they went to school.

They students are set to clean up graffiti around the bus stop and railings at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo and are also looking at the possibility of tackling spray paint that was daubed under Flatts Bridge.

Their planned action comes after weeks of criticism from Flatts Development Committee members who said they were tired of vandals destroying the beauty of the area.

Mrs. Graham said last night: "We know there is a problem and we, as a school, want to do something about it.

"We have had a meeting with the development committee and we involved our Police outreach officer to see if we could sit down together and come up with a solution to solve the problem.

"We are trying to identify who the students are that are responsible for the graffiti. But chances are fairly good that some of the people involved are from this school.

"We wanted to do this clean-up as a gesture of good will for our neighbours.

We wanted to give something back to the community.

"The students who do the clean-up may have nothing to do with the graffiti, but as a school we will be doing something positive.'' She said she was working with the Works and Engineering Department to assess what cleaning equipment was needed and which areas would be safe for the students to clean.

But she was very hopeful that cleaning teams could be organised and set to work before the end of the summer term.

Flatts Development Committee chairman W.A. (Toppy) Cowen said he was delighted to see the school play such an active role.

He said: "We did not want to see a young person suffer the long arm of the law because they had vandalised the area with graffiti, but this way I think the message gets across that people cannot destroy other people's property.

"We feel certain that the people to blame for the graffiti are from the school, but we don't know that.

"But I'm very glad Mrs. Graham has joined us in our concern. We wanted to get this thing across as a community issue, and it is now being dealt with a community effort. We are very pleased about that.'' But both Mrs. Graham and Mr. Cowen said they believed the problems with graffiti would crop up again in the future, so long as the children were forced to walk into Flatts Village to wait for a bus outside the Aquarium.

They have both approached public transport bosses to ask if the bus the pupils get each day can collect them from the school instead.

Mr. Cowen added: "We are still awaiting a response from the bus company. We want them to join us in this community effort.

"We are not trying to correct the whole bus system in Bermuda, but there is a problem here, as there is in other areas of the Island, that could be resolved here.''