Renfrewshire Council has said it is not actively considering using DNA technology to catch culprits responsible for dog fouling in the area.
The local authority revealed it does not plan to pursue the idea because perpetrators are unlikely to volunteer to take part in such an initiative.
The concept, which typically involves owners registering their pet’s DNA so that waste can be lab-tested and checked against a database, was discussed at Tuesday’s communities and housing policy board.
While that was essentially ruled out as an option, senior officials did confirm plain-clothes patrols have been trialled amid enforcement challenges.
Gerard Hannah, the council’s head of climate, public protection and roads, provided an update on an ongoing awareness campaign – including new signage, social media messaging and ‘days of action’ – at the meeting.
He said: “The latest ‘day of action’ involved the warden service dragging the likes of me out with them on their patrols … It was actually very good in terms of seeing how challenging it can actually be when you’re trying to enforce dog fouling, as I’ve probably said before at this board and others.
“The minute anyone with a dog on the lead sees a couple of people walking towards them with hi-vis vests on, sure enough, the dog bags come out. The team have been trialling plain-clothes patrols.
“We’re in the very early days of the new communications campaign that we launched around dog fouling and trying to really raise the profile of it.
“We’ve got a very good relationship with our neighbourhood services team in terms of if the team are out in a particular area and they’re concerned about the look and appearance of a particular area, we’re very quick to report that to our neighbourhood services team.
“While we might not be able to catch the dog fouling in action, we’re taking the action to get the area cleaned up as quickly as we possibly can as well to ensure the appearance of the area remains as attractive as possible.”
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Councillor James MacLaren, a Conservative representative for Bishopton, Bridge of Weir and Langbank, conceded dog fouling is a “big problem” in his ward.
He added: “I’m aware that some councils are going further and actually doing DNA tests but I know that that’s a kind of voluntary thing with the dog owners.
“We will be, I’m sure, looking to see what other councils are doing to try and tackle this problem because it will be a nationwide problem.”
Responding, Mr Hannah said staff were “always looking at new ways of doing things” and cited the possibility of deploying CCTV as an example.
However, he clarified: “One thing we probably won’t be pursuing is around the DNA technology aspects.
“There are many good reasons for doing something like that but other reasons such as the type of people who aren’t picking up their dog fouling are the type of people who are not going to volunteer to participate in something like that.
“That’s probably the simplest way around it but we’re always happy to consider new ways of looking at things.”
