RESIDENTS, town councillors and officers from Durham County Council took to the streets of Barnard Castle this week as part of an ongoing campaign to tackle dog fouling and littering issues.
The community campaign group, set up by town councillors Fiona Turnbull, Valerie Ewart and Chris Foote-Wood, have been meeting monthly to look at ways to encourage owners to pick up after their pets.
At their latest get-together, the group took to the streets, armed maps to identify hot spots and discuss where both litter and dog fouling bins are sited in the town.
Aiden McCabe, team leader of Durham County Council’s clean and green, said: “The aim of the walk is to look at the placement of the bins in town, not necessarily to add new ones, but if there are hot spot areas to look at placing them there. After all the whole point is to reduce the fouling.
“We could add an extra 50 bins, but then there is the extra workload to empty them. In what we call our zone one area – from the petrol station down to the County Bridge – we have removed old cast iron bins dated from 1989 which were past their best and replaced them with new ones. We do refurbish bins recycling what we already have where possible rather than spend out on new ones.”
He added that litter bins on the Scar Top, which regularly overflow in the summer months, will be replaced with larger ones after feedback from the town council and community group.
Cllr Fiona Turnbull said: “I think we are making slow and steady progress, but the important thing is to remind people of the need to report the fouling because if they don’t report it, then it won’t show up as an issue. If people are not comfortable reporting fouling online, they can also pop into the neighbourhood warden drop-in sessions.”
The next drop-in session is on Wednesday, February 26, 10.30am to 11.30am at Barnard Castle Library.
