Lancaster village's dog poo warriors make their mark with poster campaign

Along with pupils and staff at Bolton-le-Sands CE Primary School, they launched a poster competition with a mission to put the scourge of dog poo in the bag.

“The number of people who do not pick up after their dog is definitely on the increase,” said Bolton-le-Sands resident Mrs Helen Soutar.

‘It reflects badly on all dog owners and our beautiful village. Walking on the shore, the coastal path and the canal towpath is dreadful and so we decided instead of just moaning about it and becoming key board warriors, we would act and do something positive about it.”

A small group of villagers volunteered to form an action group and then approached Bolton-le-Sands CE Primary School, who agreed to be involved.

Headteacher Daniel Hargreaves said: “We are also really frustrated at the number of people who walk their dogs around the school and on our adjacent playing field and do not pick up.

“Children frequently step in it and then walk into school building with dog excrement on their shoes. Teachers are forever clearing up inside the buildings and around the playing field.

“We really should not have to do this. If only people were more respectful and responsible when walking their dogs.”

After talking through options, the action group and the school decided to launch a competition open to all pupils to design their own poster capturing key messages with impact.

More than 50 entries were received and judging has now taken place.

The judges, who included Stephanie Tolej and Stephanie Sykes from Bolton Le Sands Art Society, the Rev Peter Hamborg from Holy Trinity Church in the village, local councillor Linda Leak and members of the action group, had a very difficult task selecting the winning entries.

“The pupils had clearly put so much hard work and creativity into their works of art,” said Mrs Soutar.

After much debate the winners were selected in the two age groups.

Action group members Mike and Debbie Leece, together with Mrs Soutar, attended a school Friday morning worship celebration to thank the pupils and present the prizes.

“Special thanks must go to the generous local businesses, Bay View Garden Centre, Booths Supermarket and the local Coop store, who kindly donated the prizes,” added Mrs Soutar.

Mrs Leece added: “We are going to arrange a display of all the fantastic entries in the village library from Thursday May 9 for a week so the pupils and their families can come to view them. Following this the six winning posters will be converted into weatherproof posters which will be displayed at suitable places around the village.”

Mr Leece said that while the action group would put up posters along key dog walking routes, a supply of posters would be available for any residents to collect to put up, for example, on their garden gates. Further details about this will be announced on Bolton-le-Sands social media groups shortly.

He added: “Clearly, we are hopeful that with this publicity and our fantastic posters around the village, everyone will make a conscious effort to pick up after their dogs. We live in a beautiful village, and we want it to be clean and beautiful for everyone.”

Competition winners were:

1st Place KS2 - Hester M (Class 9)

2nd Place KS2 - Florence H (Class 10)

3rd Place KS2 - Lori P (Class 10)

1st Place KS1 - Sasha W (Class 5)

2nd Place KS1 - Arlo J (Rainbows)

3rd Place KS1 - Thomas B (Class 4)