Hotlines

““Aawww yukk!  Aawww goodness! That’s just disgusting.”

“Morning Convener – why the grimace?”

“Oh!  How are you Nigel – you’d be pulling faces too if you were reading this report!”

“Report Convener?”

“Yes, it’s a report that was before the Committee today.  It’s about all the unsavoury practices that this Council has to deal with.  I’ve just got to the bit about dog poo – for goodness sake it would put you off your lunch!”

“Ah yes!  But I think that it’s more delicately referred to as dog fouling these days”

“Nigel – this is what you always do.  Dog fouling sounds like my collie’s been chasing a hen.  You’d be better calling a spade a spade and this is just dog shi……”

“Convener!  That’s highly inappropriate language!

“Ahh well – I’ve no doubt that is what you’d say if you stood on it.”

“So what does the report suggest that we do about it?”

“Well the report says that we’re doing quite a bit about it already.  The Community Wardens have been sharpening their pencils and they’ve already got the names of five offenders in their books.”

“Five offenders?  What like,  Fido, Rover, Rex and ……”

“Nigel! I’m not telling you again.  I do the funnies in here!!  This is a serious business.  This report says that lots o’ folk are responding to this initiative and there’s a pile of reports coming in about who’s doing it.  And before you start – it’s the owners’ names, not the dogs!  I’ve heard there’s even a group of dog owners that have joined together to fight this menace – just like I used to do when I was the scourge of Banff and Buchan”

“Ah yes, Convener.  That would be the Green Dog Walkers.  A very worthwhile initiative.”

“Yes – you’re right.  But there’s only one problem – there’s a dreadful shortage of green dogs!”

“No Convener – you don’t have to have a green dog.  A Green Dog Walker is someone who cares for the environment and who, when walking their dog, encourages other dog owners to act responsibly and to dispose of any dog mess that may occur.  They’re only GREEN in the environmental sense.”

“Encourage them?  I could encourage then all right.  I’d give them an encouraging size 12 right up their …..”

“Convener. The days of geriatric bobbies dispensing summary justice are long gone.  Better behaviour can be achieved by education and good example – not by brute force!”

“Yes… well maybe you’re right but there’s other hooligans costing the Council money by their antisocial behaviour.   Take graffiti for instance – I can’t stand grafitti, and it costs the Council money to clear it up.  Do you know we spent £8,000 last year removing all these vile slanderous remarks off of walls in Moray?”

“Slanderous, Convenor”

“Absolutely.  Do you know what one of them said?  It said ‘Stewartie Cree’s a baldy nitwit’.  Is that not slander?”

“Well, as it’s the written word, it would be more correctly to call it Libel.  However, I suppose that it could be argued that in some ways it’s a fair description as you must admit that you’ve lost most of your crowning glory!”

“Be that as it may but moss doesn’t grow on a busy street.  However, it’s worse than that.  There’s folk dumping rubbish in lay-bys and car parks and….. oh, all over the place.  They’re just a menace!”

“Ah, yes – the fly tippers”

“Fly tippers?  There’s nothing fly about them.  We’ve to come along and clean up all  the mess that they make – and that’s even more money spent.  What are we going to do about it?

“Well, one thing that you can do Convener is to remind the public that they can report these sort of incidents to our Hotlines.”

“Hotlines?.  Oh not more buzzwords Nigel.  Just tell it like it is.  Give me a list of all the numbers that folk can use to phone to report the grafitti mongers and the sofa dumpers and I’ll put it at the bottom of my blog.  If we can get the folk out there to help us then we’ll maybe make a difference”

“And does that hold true for unserviceable street lights Convener?”

“Fit lights, Nigel?”

“Oh just a minute Convener - I think I know that one – ‘Nae bad, foo’s yersel?’”

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 The Council's Environmental Health Section will accept complaints relating to dog fouling and will make contact with the dog owner to prevent a recurrence of the practice. Tel: 01343 563345.  Or Report Dog fouling using our online form

If you see anyone dumping rubbish illegally then call the Dumb Dumpers Stop Line on 0845 2 30 40 90, or contact Moray Council at 01343 557045 -  email: waste@moray.gov.uk

For all other cases of antisocial behaviour - call 0800 58 77 197.  You can also use our - online form  to report such behaviour.