CHILDREN are at the forefront of an anti-dog fouling campaign due to start next week.
Barnard Castle Town Council’s campaign will feature banners and signs created by youngsters from the town, as well as strategies they identified to tackle the problem.
Reporting back to the council’s services committee, chairwoman Fiona Turnbull said the campaign would launch on January 15, the day of a full council meeting, and would target hot-spots such as King Street and the alleyway through the town cemetery.
She added: “We have a mock-up of a banner to go on Scar Top, it is based on one of the posters by a young man named Jack Connor – it is his picture of Barney the Dog, and we have the council’s slogan, that was voted for on our open day, Stop the Plop.”
On advice from a Durham County Council team, images of a dog fouling will be sprayed on the pavement at entrances to the hot-spots, and signs put up on lampposts within the zones.
She said: “Probably not on every lamppost because we have been advised there could be a bit of ‘sign blindness’ if there are too many up.”
The signs were sponsored by committee member Cllr Peter Bigge’s company Town and City Management Ltd.
Cllr Turnbull said: “We have had commitment as well that the neighbourhood wardens will patrol the area, so it is going to be a combined effort with the county council which is great.”
She added that along with the town council staff, support from Annalisa Ward, of Teesdale Action Partnership, had been fantastic.
Cllr Turnbull concluded: “We had overwhelming support from the children – we had 80 entries which is impressive – and I am hoping the children will do some policing as well. The children were really insightful in their awareness of the problem.
“What we are doing is what the children have suggested and it is a start and I think we will be learning [along the way].
“We are hoping later on in the year to have a dog day, which will be all around education, from micro-chipping to how to look after your dog, and hopefully the message there will come out strongly.”
The town council’s campaign has been welcomed by the county authority.
Ian Hoult, Durham County Council’s neighbourhood protection manager, said: “We get very few requests to investigate dog fouling in the Barnard Castle area – one or two per month on average – but we know it’s a serious issue for our residents and welcome any campaign that promotes responsible dog ownership and supports our own efforts to encourage people to report it to us so we can take action.
“When reporting dog fouling it really helps us if you can provide as much information as possible as the more details you give us, the better chance we have of catching the culprits.
“The main details that help us are the names or descriptions of the offenders and their dogs, the type of dog or dogs involved, and the location and time of day the offending typically takes place,” he added.
“That gives us something to follow-up on and means we can target our enforcement resources most effectively.
“What we tend to receive in most cases is a general report about dog fouling in a given area, which is enough for us to arrange a clean-up but doesn’t give us enough detail to identify and catch those responsible.”
