Hitting the fan: London council angers residents with removal of 700 dog-waste bins

Conservative-run Hillingdon aims to save £100,000 but local people fear dog poo will ‘be dumped everywhere’

People in a west London borough fear it will become covered in dog poo after their cash-strapped council decided to remove 700 dog-waste bins to save money.

“People are worried there’s going to be dog shit everywhere,” said Daniel O’Neill, the chief road steward at Ruislip Residents’ Association.

Hillingdon’s pet dogs produce about 174 tonnes of faeces each year, which, until now, has been generally bagged up by their owners and deposited in dog-waste bins.

The Conservative-run council believes it will save £100,000 in waste collection costs by removing the bins. It hopes dog owners will use general litter bins instead, but O’Neill and many other people are unconvinced.

“Everybody’s going to have a Christmas tree of dog-shit baubles in their front garden because there’ll be nowhere else to put the bags of it,” O’Neill said. “I got one of those AI generators to make me a Christmas tree with dog-shit bags in different colours, to show what’s going to happen.”

Sital Punja who walks Marley, her springer-poodle, every day in Ruislip woods, said the “preposterousness” of the bin removals have dominated chat between dog walkers.

“People are really unhappy about it, it’s going to be dumped everywhere,” said Punja, who is an opposition Labour councillor. “The dog bins in the woods are already overflowing and there aren’t enough general bins. The dog bins have lids so the smell stays inside. General bins don’t, so they stink and can be got at by foxes.”

Hillingdon is not the first council to remove dog-waste bins to try to save money. Similar plans have prompted outrage in Cornwall, Kent, North Somerset and elsewhere.

Hillingdon borough’s large debts are increasing by £5.6m a year. Its schools grant deficit alone is £101.5m and the government has “serious concerns” about the borough’s finances, which could jeopardise its chances of continuing to rely on exceptional financial support grants from Whitehall.

At the same time, Hillingdon prides itself on having frozen council tax for years. This was the root of the problem, according to O’Neill, who said he had observed the last 150 council meetings.

“If they put the council taxes up, even to just the average in London, then they would bring in £26m,” he said, “but what they’re actually doing instead is not emptying the dog-shit bins to save £100,000.”

O’Neill said it was this issue that had really cut through with residents. “I tell people about the deficit, or about the audit problems, and nobody cares. When I tell them that their bins are going to get taken away, they go nuts.”

Comments on Ruislip’s residents’ association Facebook page appear to bear this out.

“What an absurd suggestion,” said one person. Another said it was “madness” and added: “Are they trying to completely alienate the residents? There are enough selfish dog owners who already don’t pick up after their dogs so they think removing the bins will improve that?”

One resident said: “Sadly this is probably a decision by someone who does not have a clue how much shit is created by dogs. As a dog owner there are not enough bins. This is shortsighted.”

Punja said Hillingdon had a lot of dog owners. “During Covid the rise of dog owners was astronomical. I was one of those Covid dog owners.”

She added: “This is just one of the council’s harebrained ideas they have come up with when they can’t balance the books … It probably would be simpler to put up council tax. I can only describe it as dog-shit, excuse my language – but to have to scramble to such a level where you have to take away dog bins; it’s desperate.”

A council report setting out the plan said it would save £160,000, of which £60,000 would be reinvested in street cleaning.

Wayne Bridges, the council’s cabinet member for residents’ services, said: “We do understand that some residents have concerns about these changes. We are simply changing how it is collected, making better use of the nearly 1,500 ordinary litter bins already available across Hillingdon.

“By allowing dog waste to be placed in ordinary public litter bins, which can already be used safely for this purpose, more than doubling existing capacity, we can bring collections into our existing street cleansing arrangements and remove the cost of running two separate services.

“Many councils across the country already allow dog waste to be disposed of through general waste arrangements.”