From D. E. Hazell, Totland:

A visitor from Devon has commented on the amount of dog faeces encountered in the Freshwater and Needles area.

I have written to the council concerning Turf Walk in Totland, which is similarly affected.

In my letter, I referred to three classes of dog walker: the considerate, the careless and the couldn’t care less.

The careless are those who do clean up after their dogs but are not as watchful as they ought to be and the couldn’t care less brigade laugh at signs threatening heavy fines.

How many successful prosecutions were effected in 2017 for offenders using Turf Walk?

Dog registration and DNA testing of faeces costs money but it is effective and in the short term could pay for itself.

Long term will always see revenue from those indifferent to public heath issues and common decency, added to which the DNA-testing facility could have other uses as a soured of revenue.

It is not an issue likely to obscure Brexit headlines but a visitor’s lasting memory of the Island being dog mess is not what we want.