Ditch The Dirt Campaign

Ditch the Dirt Campaign

Kirkmahoe Community Council is participating in the Ditch the Dirt campaign sponsored by Clean up Scotland, part of the Keep Scotland Beautiful charity.

As you know, Kirkmahoe parish is a pretty country area, with small villages and hamlets located in green and gently contoured surroundings. Walkers, cyclists, fishermen, and families all share the common experience of simple pleasure that can be enjoyed from such surroundings, and our children are able to play safely in local parks.

Many of us in the parish are dog owners, able to exercise our pets across a wide territory, and with the freedom to enjoy our local scenery and beauty spots. Most of us are usually well prepared for the necessary clean up exercise that comes with owning a dog, but a stroll round the villages and some of our lanes suggest we still have quite a problem with dog fouling. Some lanes in particular are heavily polluted with dog dirt, and even the countryside paths used by walkers have to be walked with care. In recent research into public attitudes to littering, almost 70% of people dog fouling as the item that bothered them most.

Please help keep our community clean and safe. Allowing our dogs to foul public areas is not only illegal, with penalties which can accumulate up to £500, but also presents a risk of disease to both humans and farm animals.

As part of the Ditch the Dirt campaign we will be surveying local areas to establish the extent of the problem. The Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act 2003 aims to protect residents from the risks and dangers of abandoned dog faeces, and states it is an offence for the person in charge of a dog to leave its mess without removing it.

We are therefore asking all dog owners to ‘grab it, bag it, and bin it’, to ensure we are all able to walk our pavements, pathways, roads and fields, without fear of dragging dog dirt home on our shoes. Please help by encouraging other dog owners to pick up after their pets, and take it home.

Dog wardens are currently patrolling the area to try and help deal with the problem, and it is of course acceptable to report someone we see regularly leaving their dog mess. Both the police and local authority can issue a fixed penalty notice to those they suspect of committing an offence under the Act.

Hopefully as a community, and as responsible residents, we’ll be able to deal with this unsightly problem.

Remember – Grab it, bag it, bin it!