Silent witnesses hamper council battle against dog fouling

LISBURN council is being hampered in its attempts to tackle dog fouling by the unwillingness of people who see incidents to give witness statements, councillors have been told.

The issue war raised by Alderman Allan Ewart who expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of prosecutions taken against dog owners in the city for not clearing up after their dog.

In recent months many local residents have complained about dog fouling and have called on the Council to take more action to tackle the messy problem. Several people have been in touch with the Star to say they have been unable to find out how many people have faced action for not cleaning up after their pet.

At a meeting of Lisburn City Council’s Environmental Services Committee, the Assistant Director of Environment Services explained that fixed penalty notices could only be issued when the Dog Wardens had witnessed dog fouling or when anyone else who observed dog fouling provided witness statements.

And, he said, in the majority of cases people who made complaints to the Council about dog fouling were unwilling to provide witness statements. He said consideration was being given to how to encourage people to provide the necessary information to allow the Council to take action against dog owners.

Speaking at the meeting, Councillor Stephen Martin reminded members that the Council only had three Dog Wardens to cover a population of over 100,000 people and said there was an expectation on those three individuals to police the entirety of the Lisburn City Council area.

The Assistant Director agreed to examine the possibility of enabling other members of staff to also issue fixed penalty notices.

It was also agreed that a report on the actions of the Dog Control Service would be presented to the next meeting of the Environmental Services Committee in May.

* Is there anything more the council can do to deal with the problem of lazy dog owners who won’t clean up? Would you be willing to give a statement if you saw an incident? Or do people get too annoyed about something quite trivial? Share your opinions. Contact us by emailing [email protected], tweet us @LisburnStar or share your views on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lisburnstar

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