Bransty Schoolchildren campaign against dog mess

Members of the School Council of Bransty School came to their hopefully more grown-up opposite numbers at Copeland this afternoon to appeal for more action against dog fouling and other forms of evironmental harm associated with irresponsible dog ownership.

They gave an excellent presentation to one of Copeland Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committees, which included a description of the problems which children at the school have had to put up with. The presentation included pictures of two children from other parts of the country who have recently been seriously hurt (among other things, both were blinded) by the Toxicara Canis parasite, apparently contracted through dog droppings.

Council officers reported on the measures which are in hand to deal with this problem: there is an assesment under way about the needs of the area for refuse bins, as a result of which there will be at least two more bins on Bransty Hill.

The point was also made that you do not need a specialised "poop a scoop" bag for dog dirt: it can perfectly well be contained in an ordinary bin bag or nappy liner (and these cost an order of magnitude less.)

If anyone reading this sees someone allowing their dog to foul a public street or play area, in Bransty or anywhere else, please report it at once to the environmental health department of your local council, with as many details as you ca provide of time and place. (There is no point the council sending someone to an area at 4pm if the dog fouling is taking place at 8 am.)

Nothing in this post is intended to suggest that all dog owners are irresponsible: there are many who take care to ensure that their dogs do not make a mess in places where this causes a hazard to others, or who clear it up if they do. But there are other dog owners who need to have more consideration for other people.

Comments

Tim said…
Have you ever seen a dog owner clean up its dog's wee ? Last winter when we had an unusual amount of snow on the ground, the amount of yellow snow around lamposts and street signs was staggering. I suggested to a dog owner once that if they couldn't clean it up, they should confine their dog to a back garden for the purpose, the look they gave me was amazing !
9:33 am
Chris Whiteside said…
I've seen dog owners use poop-a-scoops, both in St Albans and in Whitehaven. Not aware of how you could clean up number ones.
7:06 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more