Bradford has adopted a new law to force people to clean up after their dogs or face a possible £1,000 fine. MIKE PRIESTLEY looks at the reasons behind this hardline approach

The scene: a recreation area on the outskirts of Bradford, two-thirds of it occupied by a soccer pitch, the rest by a children's playground.

Three children are swinging on the swings, two being pushed by their mother, the third by an older brother. Another child climbs the steps to the top of the slide and shoots down it, laughing, then climbs off and runs round to the steps again.

Prominent signs on the edge of the area ask dog owners not to let their pets foul the grass, which is used for recreational purposes. Four free-ranging dogs and three owners are ignoring that appeal. That is excusable in the case of the dogs, one of which is just squatting between the goalposts. Two of the others are chasing around. The fourth is sniffing about in the recreation area search of a suitable spot. It finds one, not far from the swings, and crouches there.

Meanwhile, two of the owners are deep in conversation, their backs to their animals. The third wanders along admiring the view down in the valley. There is not a poop scoop in sight.

The chances are that before the day is over one of those children will have dog dirt on its shoes, possibly on its clothing, perhaps even on its hands. And come the weekend some hapless amateur goalie is going to go home with something horrid wrapped around his boot studs.

Investigating complaints about dog fouling is now a major part of the work of Bradford's dog warden team. The service has largely got on top of the problem of strays and dealt with the row over the Dangerous Dogs Act by launching its own voluntary registration scheme (more than 20,000 dogs have now been registered). But dog muck just won't go away. It is a big bone of contention between the dog -owning and non-dog-owning sections of the British population. Small wonder.

Consider this. Go into any supermarket and wander down the pet-food aisle. There you will find shelf after shelf stacked with tins and packets and boxes of dog food. That display is repeated in supermarket after supermarket. But how many wonder what happens to all that food?

It gets processed in the natural way by Britain's seven million dogs, and a fair proportion of the 1,000 tons of what they produce from it each day is deposited on grass verges, pavements, park lawns, playing fields, canal towpaths and anywhere else. Much of it will be left where it's dropped. That isn't the fault of the dogs, which are only doing what comes naturally. It's the fault of the dogs' owners, who fail to take their responsibilities to the community seriously enough.

Although a growing number of owners are taking the trouble to scoop up their pets' mess and take it away with them, and others are making sure their dogs do what they have to do in their own back yards, there are still too many who can't be bothered.

All that, hopefully, is set to change now Bradford Council has taken on board the Dogs (Fouling of Land ) Act 1996. The Act takes over from the by-laws under which Bradford Council was able to prosecute owners whose dogs left a mess on footpaths and verges protected by prohibition signs or who disobeyed the poop-scoop regulations in 17 of the district's parks - offences which carried a maximum fine of £100, later raised to £500.

From now on it will be an offence for dog owners to let their dogs foul any footpath, park, play area, grass verge or public amenity owned by the Council (and that means a lot of land) without cleaning it up. If they're caught, they will have a choice: pay a fixed penalty of £25 or appear in magistrates' court and face a fine of up to £1,000.

The National Trust, which owns East Riddlesden Hall in Bradford district, and British Waterways with its 16 miles of towpaths, are joining Bradford Council in the campaign.

Not all local authorities are taking the Act on board. However, it is regarded as an important new weapon by Bradford Council, which has carried out a long campaign against irresponsible dog ownership through its Dog Warden Service.

That's why it is producing and distributing 100,000 leaflets and 1,000 posters, siting 70 billboards and having signs stuck on the sides of 28 buses hammering home the message. It is why dog wardens are going into schools to talk to children and ask them to go home and persuade their parents into clearing up after the family pet. It's why, eventually, there will be signs all around the outskirts of the district advising that Bradford is a clean-up zone.

The big difference between the new law and the old by-laws is that offenders can't successfully plead ignorance because there was no sign nearby warning them not to let their pets foul. After this campaign, everyone will be expected to know about this blanket ban.

Terry Singh, manager of the Dog Warden Service, appreciates that attitudes will not change dramatically overnight. But he is convinced that change they will, steadily and certainly, just as attitudes to smoking in public places have changed, and to drink driving.

"There is less and less open space in Bradford because of development," he points out. "So there are fewer public places for dogs to go. It can't continue, unless people scoop up the dog dirt and take it away with them. There are a lot of complaints coming in. The way it's going we could become an anti-dog nation rather than a nation of dog lovers. The new rules will make things better all round - for the environment, for the public, and for the dogs."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.