Concern dog fouling is on the increase
REPORT the dog mess – that’s the message to residents in the hope action will be taken against dog owners who fail to clean up after their pets.
The streets around Old Town in Stratford are seen as a particular problem for dog fouling, including the Chestnut Walk area where there are two schools as well as a busy walking route to the town centre.
Matt McCourt, who lives in Evesham Place with his wife and son, told the Herald: “It started really in early December. We normally park in Chestnut Walk and one day my wife stepped out the car and inadvertently stepped in dog mess. Obviously we thought ‘why is there dog mess on car parking spaces in Chestnut Walk because that’s not even consistent with a public pathway or a road, it’s an odd place for it to be.
“It’s definitely got worse. I spend a lot of time in Stratford, I’m in town getting a coffee pretty much every day because I work from home, and we do all our shopping here, and it’s noticeably different.
“We’re really privileged where we live in Stratford, it’s a beautiful market town. A lot of people come a long way to visit, and probably the last thing we need for all of our sakes, as well as the economy and our visitors, is to be seen as a town that’s not looking after itself in that regard.
“We had friends over from Bangkok over new year, and didn’t mention anything to them, and they said ‘there’s a lot of dog mess in this town isn’t there?’ That was just the final test that it wasn’t only us noticing it.”
From March 2020 until now there have been 164 complaints made to Stratford District Council regarding dog fouling, compared with 93 in from March 2019 to March 2020.
There were no Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) served for dog fouling from March 2019 to present. The lack of fines follows advice from government, set out during the pandemic, stipulating that local authorities should prioritise issuing fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for breaching Covid restrictions.
A council spokesperson said: “Although the environmental health team at the council is small and they have been prioritising the response to Covid, they have still been actively investigating fouling complaints.
“Even though the team has not served any FPNs for dog fouling in the past two years, they do undertake dog fouling stencilling with biodegradable paint on the footpaths in areas where fouling has been reported. This does seem to highlight the issue and has changed behaviours in that locality. In order for the council to serve FPNs, evidence is needed which is difficult to obtain and it’s found that stencilling often gets the required results.”
Matt added: “We absolutely should encourage the reporting of it because it will then encourage the council to do something about it if the complaints are at that level and continue to rise. I understand in the grander scheme of the last two years that there’s been much greater things to worry about, but I do think there has to be a sense of pride.
“If we are going to spend more time in our town, working from home as the pandemic subsides, then we’ve got to be better at looking after what we’ve got.”
