TOWN councillors are calling on the community to help them get to grips with the dog fouling problem in Llanfyllin.

They have raised concerns that it is blighting parts of the town and it will take efforts from the whole community to prevent people from getting away with it.

At their January meeting, held remotely via Zoom, members of Llanfyllin Town Council said they were reaching the limit of what they could do themselves to tackle the issue.

Councillor Jane Carrington said there were plenty of bins, but a new strategy was needed, while cllr Julian Sandy added that warnings about fines from Powys County Council and environmental health could help.

Cllr Alison Alexander suggested that those caught letting their dogs defecate and not picking up the mess should be made to clean it up and clean in the community which could prove a deterrent.

“The town needs to know we’re trying our best to do something”, cllr Shan Mayor said.

“The message to the community is ‘we’ve invested in this, we’re trying our best’, does anyone in the community have any ideas about what more we could do?”

She added: “We need to let people know exactly what the law is and exactly what the town council has done.”

Cllr Carrington agreed, adding: “We’re volunteer councillors, we work, we put plenty of bins out.

“Sometimes the community has to take a bit of ownership themselves – we’ve invested a lot of money in this.”

Cllr Lynette Kretchmer said that dog fouling should be reported to PCSOs while cllr Sandy called on businesses to make use of their CCTV as people would be less inclined to leave their dogs’ mess behind under surveillance.