IN RESPONSE to your article on litter and dog-fouling (August 7), I would like to congratulate St Helens Council for their proposed crackdown on littering and dog-fouling in the borough.

My wife and I returned to the Warrington/St Helens area recently after 34 years spent living in East Africa to find a depressingly overpopulated and often slovenly environment beset with problems such as litter, dog-fouling, fly-tipping and graffiti.

Laws and bye-laws have long been in place to deal with such offences.

But there seems to have been little will, on the part of the local councils or the police, to implement them.

Encouragingly, enough people now appear to be as disgusted as we have been with the situation and I can see signs that at last the tide is turning.

This initiative by St Helens Council, assuming that it is properly followed up, with offenders being served with fines on the spot, will be welcomed by the great majority of reasonable and respectable people. Let’s hope it works and let’s hope that Warrington Council, among others, follows St Helens’ praiseworthy lead.

Graham Mercer (via email)