Burnley residents urged to 'dish the dirt' on dog owners

The web page – www.burnley.gov.uk/whodunit - is part of a wider campaign by the council to tackle and reduce dog fouling across the borough.

It follows the launch of a dedicated phone hotline number 01282 475932 for people to provide information so that council enforcement officers can catch the culprits and issue £100 fines to those who don’t clean up after their dog.

The council is encouraging people to “dish the dirt” and help identify those owners who don’t clean up after their dogs, and highlight the “hot spots” where dog fouling is a particular problem so that enforcement work can be more targeted and effective.

Coun. Cosima Towneley, the council’s executive member for community and environmental services, said: “Most dog owners are responsible, carry bags and clean up after their pets. But there is a still small, but determined, minority who don’t.

“As well as using the hotline number, people can go online and report those dog owners who are prepared to leave their dog’s business wherever they please, and let us know where the problems are so we can better target our enforcement work.

“We can only properly tackle the issue of dog fouling with the help of residents who often know who’s responsible, and where and when it is happening.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for people to provide us with the information we can use to catch those responsible for messing up our streets and parks. That way we’ll all be able to enjoy cleaner and greener communities.

“We would ask responsible residents to either call the hotline or go on the web page and leave information that our officers can act on and target enforcement patrols to make sure we catch and fine those owners who are responsible for spoiling our borough.”

The information needed to catch those owners who don’t pick up the poop includes:

Their name and/or address

• Any other ways of identifying them

• The kind of dog(s) they own

• When and where the event takes place