Dog Fouling

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for bringing the debate. It might not seem the most glamourous or exciting of topics, but keeping our communities clean and pleasant is a key part of local government’s remit. Ensuring that our streets, parks, playgrounds and open spaces are free from ugly, unhygienic dog mess is really important.

Dog mess is a source of nuisance to residents and an eyesore on many streets, from high streets in towns and city centres to country paths and village lanes. Roads littered with dog mess damage civic pride and tarnish the image of an area. It is unpleasant in both sight and smell, it is unhygienic, it spreads disease and it becomes a costly problem for local authorities to tackle. In fact, councils spend about £1 billion a year dealing with littering, including dog waste. Furthermore, dog owners who break the law on dog fouling and refuse to clean up after their dogs put the health of others at risk, particularly children.

It is children who are most at risk of contact with dog excrement, which can cause toxo—I cannot say the word.

[Mrs Main]

Toxocariasis.

[Teresa Pearce]

That’s it—I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. It is a nasty infection that can lead to dizziness, nausea, asthma and even blindness and seizures.

It is not surprising that 47% of people in the UK think that dog fouling is one of the most annoying things they experience in public places. I recently met a group of cyclists who told me that one of the worst things they encounter, when cycling through country lanes, are these “baubles”, which the hon. Lady referred to, hanging from trees, which hit them in the face as they are riding and trying to enjoy the countryside. The public rank dog fouling as even more annoying than general littering, pollution, traffic and smoking. According to Keep Britain Tidy, dog fouling is

“a major concern to members of the public”.

A survey that it undertook of more than 10,000 sites found dog mess left in 7% of places. As such, it is a major issue for local authorities.

We seem to have got the “bag it and bin it” message out in towns, but there needs to be a different message in the countryside. In particular, it is important to keep local parks free from dog mess. Parks and green spaces play a crucial role in the health of our communities, including the mental health and general wellbeing of our residents. Parks provide spaces for exercise, cultural events, picnics, walks and everyday contact with the natural environment, which is proven to have a positive impact on mental health—particularly in towns and cities, where people’s lives are increasingly confined to home, work and commuting between the two.

Parks and open spaces are crucial to improving health and happiness in a society with increasing levels of obesity and disorders such as depression and anxiety. In that context, it is disappointing that parks and green spaces are facing unprecedented budgetary cuts that threaten their future existence. More than 90% of park managers expect decreased funding this year, while 97% of street cleaning services expect decreased funding over the next five years. That reduction will amount to more than 20% of their funding, which will have an impact on the presence of dog mess on our streets and in our parks.

The hon. Member for St Albans mentioned earlier that DEFRA no longer collects figures regarding dog mess. I agree with her that doing so might be an unnecessary burden; however, BBC figures show that 103 of 302 local authorities surveyed did not issue any fines for dog fouling at all in 2014-15. Enforcement is quite difficult. As was explained, it has to be witnessed and somebody has to report it. It is almost impossible: somebody would need to be very lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

[Mrs Main]

I thank the hon. Lady for reinforcing that point. People are also reluctant to be confrontational. Putting the onus on somebody having to report somebody else is very difficult. I understand why. We have to face into this.

[Teresa Pearce]

I completely agree. There are particularly bad dog owners in some parks quite near where I live. To be quite honest, one would not want to confront them—or the dog—on any issue, because they are quite aggressive people. I did a very unscientific survey among my friends earlier today. I asked if they understood what bin to put dog mess in, and a huge proportion thought it could only be put in the dog mess bin, which is not correct. These are regular dog walkers, yet they did not know that, so education is really important.

Many local authorities are using behaviour-change approaches to reduce dog fouling, but we need to make sure they are using the right message. As I said, “bag it and bin it” may be the right message in towns, but in the countryside it may be completely the wrong message and could actually cause further problems. I was particularly interested in the hon. Lady’s experiment with the chocolate éclair—I might see if I can find it on YouTube.

[Mrs Main]

I can tell the hon. Lady that she can do that. They also put down a can of chilli sauce and a bread roll soaked in water. They gave me a flimsy stick to try to demonstrate stick and flick, but it was not really the best representation of the way to do it, according to the Forestry Commission. The video is online.

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank the hon. Lady for the clarification. Local authorities have been campaigning with public sector bodies such as Keep Britain Tidy and third sector organisations such as Dogs Trust on the issue of dog fouling. Keep Britain Tidy’s 2010 campaign, “There’s no such thing as the dog poo fairy”, led to some communities seeing a 90% decrease in dog mess. The Dogs Trust’s “The Big Scoop” campaign involves posters, installations in parks and dispensers of free dog poo bags—although as we have heard, that might not be the answer in some areas.

In 2012, West Dunbartonshire Council armed its local clean-up workers with cans of bright spray paint to tag abandoned dog waste in a highly visible colour scheme to shame guilty dog owners and notify pedestrians that the dog waste was there. Leeds City Council’s litter and dog fouling campaign includes a reward scheme for people seen by enforcement officers using litter bins, and Manchester City Council ran a campaign with posters reinforcing responsibility for littering. However, dealing with these issues is expensive, and local authority budgets are restricted at this time, so we need to change behaviours. I was a dog owner for many years; unfortunately we lost our little Jack Russell, Mrs Biggles, last year. I would never have dreamt of bagging and not binning. If I could not bin, I would take it home. However, I was not on a long country walk, which is a different circumstance altogether; I was always relatively near where I live.

Unless there is continued investment in campaigns to deter dog owners from shirking their responsibilities, we will see regression in a culture that has actually been steadily improving for years. Lack of bins, particularly on public footpaths through the countryside, can also prevent dog owners from collecting dog mess. However, it is not only the lack of bins; it is about disposing of the dog mess properly. It is incomprehensible that anybody could think it was okay to bag and then just throw or flick. It is the equivalent of someone throwing a fast food bag out of the car as they drive along. It is basically pushing the responsibility for clearing it up on to somebody else. I was particularly struck by the reference to plastic shopping bags and how this is becoming a similar issue. One of my local councils recently suggested that it could increase its income by putting advertising on dog poo bags, because so many are sold. I am not quite sure whether that is a good idea or not—it is innovative, if nothing else.

Dog mess is the most unacceptable and offensive type of litter on our streets, and dog fouling is one of the most annoying and avoidable issues that concerns the public. However, the problem will not disappear on its own. An estimated 8 million dogs produce more than 1,000 tonnes of mess every day in the UK alone. Nearly a quarter of British people find dog mess in their local city, town or village at least once a day, and almost three quarters of people experience that on a weekly basis. We need to educate dog owners. The “bag it and bin it” message seems to have been successful, but this new phenomenon needs tackling. The hon. Lady said that she is not coming up with the answer today, but she is identifying and publicising the problem, which is the first step in finding an answer. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

At the end of Minister’s response, Anne Main will have the opportunity to sum up the debate.