ONE-woman anti-dog poo campaigner Alison Brown has collected and bagged nearly 200 piles of mess in just one month in a quarter-mile stretch of road near her Exmoor home.

Mrs Brown, a retired nurse who moved five years ago to live in Dulverton, stepped up her campaign this week with the use of luminous yellow spray paint to highlight dog poo left in the street.

She said in February alone she bagged 174 piles of dog poo between Chapel Street and the Dulverton Junior School field gateway in Milham Lane.

Mrs Brown said the total did not include the poo from her own four dogs which she walks in the lane every day.

She said: “This particular road is used by children walking to school, children learning to ride their bikes, elderly walking the flat area with walking aids, physically disabled people using the flat road without trip hazards to maintain their mobility levels, people using electric wheel chairs/buggies, and that just names a few of the most vulnerable people who like to enjoy this walking area.

“We are talking a quarter of a mile, it is no distance.

“It is just not on, it is just awful.”

Mrs Brown said she had picked up so much dog mess in recent weeks that she had run out of poo bags.

Now, she has instead started to use a bright yellow paint spray to mark piles of dog poo to make them more visible to help people avoid treading in it.

Mrs Brown said: “I am trying to shame people into being more responsible and community-minded.

“I do not understand if you have a dog why you cannot do the whole thing and pick up.

“It is second nature to anybody with any common sense.

“I have my own four dogs to pick up after and I am currently nursing a broken arm, but still manage to clear up after my own dogs.

“I have always picked up, I cannot walk past it.”

Mrs Brown said she disposes of the bags of poo in some of the many dog litter and rubbish bins which were dotted around Dulverton.

She said: “I do not take them with me on my circular walks, I leave myself a collection and pick them up on the way home, rather Hansel and Gretel-like.

“There are so many poo bins, you cannot miss them.”

Mrs Brown said it was possible to tell from the dog poo piles that many were ‘repeat offenders’, yet nobody seemed to ever catch somebody ‘in the act’.

Visit Dulverton’s Ali Pegrum praised Mrs Brown for highlighting an issue which would appall most people.

Ms Pegrum said: “Dulverton is a charming moorland town which welcomes visitors from across the globe and we are a most welcoming town for dogs.

“We have lots of dog poo bins so we do not have the problem in the areas where most people tend to walk.”

Coincidentally, Visit Dulverton is planning the town’s first family dog show as one of this year’s summer events.