BEXLEY'S eateries could do with a cleanup according to new research into food hygiene.

The survey concluded the borough's catering businesses have the highest failure rate among local authority areas in England under the Food Standards Agency's food hygiene rating scheme.

The scheme ranks businesses with a score of nought to five, where five indicates excellent hygiene standards and nought means urgent improvement is required.

Bexley not only had the highest percentage of failures - businesses scoring two or less - but the highest proportion of zero ratings at 8.46 per cent, or 57 from a total of 673 businesses inspected.

A spokesperson for Bexley Council said customers should "walk out" if in any doubt over a venue's cleanliness.

A statement claimed the borough's results had been distorted by the number of "higher risk premises" targeted by inspectors since the council launched the scheme earlier this year. 

The statement said: "As more lower risk premises are brought into the scheme the proportion of businesses receiving poor rating scores is expected to fall to levels more in line with national figures."

The London boroughs of Haringey, Islington and Lewisham were also in the bottom 10 in the survey carried out be reputation management firm KwikChex, which analysed the scores received by restaurants, hotels, pubs, shops and other caterers across England.

They found kebab shops were the worst offenders with 31 per cent of the 1,500 businesses returned in the search receiving a score below three, or satisfactory standard, the worst for any type of cuisine.

Takeaways in general did little better, with 21 per cent of the 8,000  included in the findings coming in below satisfactory. 

Customers can search for the hygiene rating of food businesses in participating local authority areas by visiting ratings.food.gov.uk or downloading an FSA app for Android or iPhone.

Local authority areas in England with the highest failure rates:

1 Bexley
2 Sutton
3 Walsall
4 St Albans
5 Haringey
6 Ealing
7 Hertsmere
8 Islington
9 Lewisham
10 Trafford

Local authority areas in England with the lowest failure rates:

1 Craven
2 South Gloucestershire
3 South Norfolk
4 Eden
5 North Devon
6 Ribble Valley
7 Brentwood
8 Weymouth and Portland
9 West Oxfordshire
10 Pendle