I walk my dog on a regular basis around several Wiltshire towns with my poo bags, so make the effort to know where all the bins are for dogs and people alike. What I see is litter everywhere and of course fouling from dogs which makes it bad for the responsible dog owners.

Even more amazing is to see how close some of this mess is from the bins – what is sure is there are sad morons out there and dogs that do not deserve their mindless owners.

On days when refuse is collected I cringe when the owners take their bins out to be emptied and ignore the litter all around, so not happy to have it in their houses (well some are) but happy to have it outside gates, walls and in the streets.

To top it all the council we pay our dues to make all the excuses of underfunding but forget all about the big increases to their wage bill then build themselves very smart expensive council offices with poor performance in the inept way they handle contracts. Value for money, I think not, and they just ignore the whole issue.

The litter issue can be overcome if we use the ideas of other countries that utilise the people who cause the grief and end up with community service. They put them to good use rather than the soft touch, getting them to improve and clear up the areas that in many instances they have helped to desecrate. I would ask who out there have any idea what the people on community service do? Very few.

Why cannot these offenders be used to clean up the so-called lovely Wiltshire county, which would at least make them aware of what a foul problem exists, with the hope it would make them more responsible?

We will get the cry of “It’s against my human rights” or “health and safety issues” so explain to me why these people who abuse the civil rights of honest normal civil people expect to be treated the same. It is a crazy situation.

As for heath and safety, I have worked in heavy engineering all my life. So you give them a fluorescent jacket, gloves, a litter picker and a plastic bag so they touch nothing, then be supervised by a so-called competent officer (who might be the only issue) but might benefit by being active outside rather than sat in an office drinking coffee and marking time while the offenders spend their time whiling the hours away.

So stand up the leaders of the well paid Wiltshire Council, who I am sure do not live in the areas I have described, and get out of your office for a change. Have a tour around roads and paths that lead to the towns, hopefully with a litter picker and poo bags, to see what the problems really are like – not to just ignore it.

I can guarantee you would not like it, but feel sure it will never happen as it’s normal for the people in charge just to ignore the difficult messy problems with the hope that it might go away somehow.

Tony Scott.