By ANDREW LEARMONTH
GLASGOW has issued the most tickets for dog fouling in Scotland and city dog owners owe £90,000 in unpaid debt.
The city council handed out 2,547 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) last year - 67% of the total 3,781 issued across the 32 local authority areas.
Figures obtained by our sister paper The National, showed dog owners in Glasgow are responsible for £90,000 of the £122,250 debt that has not been paid.
A further £98,591 has been paid. The total fines issued in Scotland amounted to £220,811 over the past two years.
In Glasgow, the total value of fines issued was a whopping £143,320, and yet only £54,275 has been collected by the council, just slightly more than a third.
The WarOnLitter twitter account, run by a 46-year-old father of two who asked to remain anonymous, has been waging a long battle with Glasgow council over dog mess.
He said: “Just think what £100k could pay for when councils are complaining about budget cuts from Holyrood.”
“What is the point of fining if fines are not collected? That is just a waste of manpower and wages. Money down the drain. Not only are they not collecting fines they are paying someone to issue the fines so it costs them double.”
A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said people could face court action or even eviction from rented homes if they failed to pay.
She said: “Anyone who fails to pay after 28 days is referred to debt recovery.
“If repeat offenders live in social rented housing, their landlords are notified. If other antisocial behaviour is also being committed or the tenants are breaching their tenancy agreement in other ways, their tenancy could be at risk and they may ultimately face eviction.
“Repeat offenders in private accommodation are referred to Community Relations Officers to pursue under Anti-social Behaviour legislation."
The figures showed Edinburgh, issued just 65and Stirling didn’t issue a single one.
Orkney and Shetland councils haven’t issued any at all in the last two years, while Aberdeen issued just five in 2016.
Fines were initially £40 but the Scottish Parliament voted to increase it to £80 in June 2016.
According to the Scottish Household Surveys in 2016, discarded canine faeces was the most common neighbourhood problem, with 31 per cent of Scots saying it was a problem.
When the rise in price was announced the Scottish Government said they were considering how to “develop a more robust system to tackle the issue of collecting unpaid penalties.”
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel