Dog poo bag left on emergency defibrillator, as pet owners bemoan removal of bins

The loss of more than 50 bins along a stretch of the River Tees has led to a “dreadful” problem with dog poo litter, say walkers.

Riverside bins were removed from towpaths almost two years ago by a charity which said it could no longer afford the £30,000-a-year expense of maintaining them, leaving only a small number of bins. Now dog walkers say this has resulted in some irresponsible owners spoiling the beauty spot by not cleaning up their pets’ poo.

Some simply leave their dogs’ faeces where it sits, with one seen right next to the Tees Barrage sign. Others take the half-hearted measure of bagging up the excrement then discarding it. Several of these packages can be found in hedges, by the river bank or, in one case, on top of a defibrillator.

“Do they think there is a poo fairy?” asks one walker with a German Shepherd. “People seem to think it’s acceptable to hang them off trees or on the side of banks.

“I’m quite happy to carry poos around. But it’s the fact that people put it in a bag, tie it up and leave it on the side of the path.”

Retired firefighter Mike Fellows, 77, from Billingham, said he was “amazed” at the lack of bins and amount of dog poo littering the stretch: “You see bags of poo, either thrown in hedges or over a fence.

“I took a carrier bag and I must have picked up 20 to 30 bags. I had to take them home in the car and put them in a bin.

He suggested the solution of putting bins on either side of each of the bridges in the area, which could be emptied without having to walk along the bank: “It’s a shame. It’s a lovely area.

“It only takes one person to start dropping something, then other people think they’ll drop it, and it escalates.”

Joanne Walker, 54, from Stockton, walking her Jackapoo Rupert, said: “You’re carrying a poo bag right around your walk. People will not want to carry them so they’ll dump them or they won’t pick up.”

Nurse Charlotte Bruce-Hannah, 26, from Ingleby Barwick, with her poodle Honey and her own poo bag in hand, added: “There just isn’t any (bins). That’s the problem. I’ve carried this all the way from the car park.”

Benita Haughton, 59, from Norton, walking her Sprocker Skye, said: “People are just throwing them into the river or over fences. It’d be better if they just left it to be honest, at least it’d go into the ground.”

“There’s no bins. You’ve got to really walk to find them. Surely the council must have to do something.”

One regular walker, walking a Weimaraner, said: “It’s dreadful. It’s completely counter-productive.

“All that’s happened now is the dog muck’s either being left or it’s being picked up and flung into the nearby foliage. I was speaking to somebody who’s stopped coming here because of that issue.

“I find myself not walking enjoying the view, but watching where I walk so I don’t tread in it. It’s people who use the area who are suffering. Dog walkers get bad names.”

Councillor Clare Besford, Stockton Council’s cabinet member for environment and transport, said: “Ultimately, this decision taken by the Canal and River Trust to remove the bins is beyond our control as we do not own the land.”

A spokesperson for the Canal and River Trust said: “We wrote to local authorities across our Yorkshire and North East region advising of our intention to remove many bins from our towpaths. As a charity, the Canal & River Trust is faced with soaring costs of looking after the region’s ageing canals at a time when available funding is stretched – notably the continuing real-terms decline in funding from government.

“We need to prioritise maintaining the core fabric of the waterways, including the thousands of locks, bridges, aqueducts and other historic structures that make up the canal network, so that we can continue to provide free access to our towpaths for millions of people and maintain the integrity of the infrastructure to keep communities safe. The decision to remove our bins will save much needed money that will help pay for a long list of vital repairs.

“The trust has many miles of canal where we don’t provide litter bins, including many that have achieved Green Flag Award status. We are asking people who come to enjoy our free-to-visit waterways to follow the Countryside Code and take their litter back with them to be recycled where possible or disposed of responsibly.

“In doing so, they will be helping to protect the environment and helping our charity save vital money so we can keep the canals open.”