Dark nights have seen a surge in dog fouling on the streets of Linlithgow.
Andy Johnston, the council’s Countryside manager gave a quarterly update on the not-so-clean streets of the burgh between October and December last year.
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The cleaner streets figures showed a surge in dog fouling enquiries as well as an increase in general litter complaints.
He told a recent meeting of the town’s local area committee: "Dog fouling enquiries doubled over the same period in 2020.
“I’m not quite sure why that is. There’s generally an increase in enquiries during the winter period. The dark hours, people are less inclined to pick up.”
The council has stepped up patrols.
Mr Johnston said: “What we have done is that the enforcement officers are doing more ad hoc patrols in the hotspots to see if we can catch the culprits and issue fines.”
There were ten reports of dog fouling in the three months to 31 December last year compared to just four for the same period in 2020.
Other reports which went up included litter reports and the number of abandoned vehicles - which increased from two to four.
While fly-tipping is still a major issue in the ward, and across the county, the number of reports in the Linlithgow area fell dramatically - to 15 in the last quarter, compared to 46 in the same period in 2020.
Clear-up costs for the ward fell similarly, from £3,894 in the 2020 third quarter to a little over £1,000 in the last three months of 2021.
Mr Johnston said the council was planning its own renewed campaign against fly-tipping, one which will tie on with a national campaign.
