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.”
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
