Advertisements for crisps, sugary drinks and biscuits could be a thing of the past in Lewisham, with the council drawing up plans for a borough-wide ban on junk food advertising.

Lewisham Council is one of 13 authorities given £10,000 of funding from the Department of Health to explore how a ban on adverts for food and drink high in sugar, fat and salt would work.

The ban is likely to be in place from April.

Around one in three children leaving primary school in Lewisham are obese, one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the country.

Cabinet member for health, Cllr Chris Best, said children’s behaviours were impacted by junk food advertising.

“Research demonstrates that the development of children’s food preferences and behaviours are influenced by advertising and through working in this space we have a real opportunity to positively shape their behaviours and impact child obesity rates,” she said.

“Regulators and brands recognise that they have a role to play.

“Tackling obesity is part of our agenda to reduce health inequalities, it is unacceptable that nationally children from the most deprived areas are more than twice as likely to be obese than children in the least deprived areas.”

She added: “In Lewisham, we are making progress to reduce childhood obesity across the borough. However, nearly one in five children are already overweight or obese on entering reception, rising to more than one in three in Year 6.”

Statistics from Public Health England show that 24 per cent of Year 6 pupils were declared obese, between April 2016 and March 2017, and 5.7 per cent severely obese. On top of that 15.2 per cent of Year 6 children were declared overweight.

That means on average 40 per cent of Lewisham’s youngsters are unhealthily overweight when they start secondary school.

Once plans are drawn up, the council can bid for up to £300,000 of further funding over three years to fully implement and evaluate the impact of the ban.

The initiative also includes a campaign to encourage residents to walk more and eat less sugar.

This comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced in November that junk food adverts would be banned across the capital’s transport network.