Conservative councillors are calling on Cotswold District Council (CDC) to increase the number of dog waste bins at popular walking locations and parks.
The opposition councillors also want the council to increase the frequency these bins are emptied.
They say there has been an unexpected increase in dog ownership as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Pet Food Manufacturers Association estimates that more than 12 million people now own a dog.
A survey they conducted confirms a staggering rise in people buying pets with dogs being the most popular at 57 per cent.
Conservative councillors believe the number of dog owners is much higher in the Cotswolds compared to the national average.
And as a result, many places in the Cotswolds suffer from a huge increase of dog waste which leads to the waste bins filling up quickly.
The Conservatives say the problem is so bad, that some local groups are taking matters into their own hands.
Tetbury Town Council is emptying the dog waste bins themselves and storing the waste in a council car park until the district council can come and collect it and dispose of it hygienically.
Requests for extra dog waste bins and more frequent collections by other town and parish councils have been turned down, even if they are prepared to pay for new bins themselves.
The Conservatives say these councils are currently being told that CDC service is at maximum capacity and extra waste bins and collections are unavailable at this time.
This issue is going to be debated at a full council meeting next week by opposition councillors who have tabled a motion to try and resolve the issue.
Councillor Julia Judd (Ermin Ward) said: “I am really hopeful that my motion will highlight the importance of this issue, and that the administration will immediately provide the necessary funding to bring this essential service up to the required level.
“For more than a decade, we have been telling responsible owners to pick up after their dog, bag it and then bin it. It is obvious the council are now not holding up their end of the bargain.
“We do not want these dog waste bags being left in or around our local community, or worse still disposed of incorrectly and contaminating our other waste and recycling collection services.”
Environment, Waste and Recycling cabinet member Andrew Doherty said the council has turned down 15 applications for dog/litter bins out of around 1,750.
He says the council is offering to move existing bins to better locations and three parish councils have done this.
“One parish council has asked to replace two dog-bins for litter bins to increase capacity which we have agreed to do,” he said.
“So less than one per cent of our possible bins have been affected and we have managed to make alternative arrangements in most of those instances.
“We are seeing more waste material, across all our services, as a result of the pandemic.
“We are still seeing very elevated volumes on the normal waste services and as everyone will have seen in the news recruitment and retention of drivers is an increasing problem so we try to manage demand for drivers carefully.
“We try to avoid simply adding more and more vehicles to the fleet because waste services are a significant part of the council’s carbon footprint.
“The vehicles collecting up from public waste bins travelled around 130,000 miles last year and the waste fleet as a whole does well over a million miles a year.”
He also said that whether the council have or have not managed to empty a particular bin it does not take away the personal responsibility for dog owners.
“Nobody should consider it acceptable to leave bags of dog crap in the middle of a path or field, dropping a bag next to a bin because it’s full isn’t different,” he said.
“It wouldn’t occur to me to do this, I’d take it to another bin or simply carry it home. I see plenty of dog owners carrying poo-bags to a bin, or their own bin at home, and I think the vast majority of dog owners would think that is exactly the right thing to do.
“We don’t want to leave bins full for any length of time and the team works hard to try and avoid that. We are trying various changes to rounds, collections, staff and messaging to help manage the problem and we’ll continue to do so. In particular, we hope that as Covid restrictions change we will have a better idea of what the new volumes will be in the long term and be able to plan accordingly.”
He said the arrangement in Tetbury was agreed between the district council and town council after an offer from them in January.
“That arrangement was put in place as the most effective way of increasing capacity at the time – it makes good use of Tetbury Town Council’s local resources in combination with Ubico’s pickup and disposal services.
“The arrangement has probably lasted longer than expected, but so has the pandemic.
“Arrangements will almost certainly change again, but we’ll continue to try to work in partnership with Tetbury Town Council and we very much appreciate the assistance they have provided to date.”
