Kilvert's Portrait

 I was sitting in the bar of Kilvert's earlier today, waiting for my washing in the launderette, and I noticed the portrait of Freddie they have over the fireplace.  Freddie was, of course, the Kilvert dog, who died a couple of years ago.  It's a very good likeness, but the red light in the background does make him look a little bit demonic!

Thoughtless Visitors

Well, that was a good walk ruined.

Yesterday I went for a walk along the Offa's Dyke Path by the river. It was another glorious day with a cloudless blue sky. There was a heat haze over the barley field, and wild flowers under the shade of the trees.

Three fields along the path, there's a little pebbly beach, well below the level of the field. A family was down there, sitting on the beach and playing in the water.
There were two dogs. I was a bit concerned by this, as the first two open fields I'd walked through were full of sheep, and I'd seen a ewe and a couple of lambs in the field with the beach.
But, okay, the dogs were down on the beach and playing in the river, well away from the sheep, so I didn't say anything.

I walked as far as I felt comfortable with in the heat, and then I turned back.
In the distance, I could see one of the dogs from the beach chasing the ewe and lambs.
As I got closer, a man came up from the beach, holding a lead, and started to chase the dog. If he shouted the dog, it was too quiet for me to hear him. The dog ignored him, and now the sheep were running from the dog and the man trying to catch the dog.
Eventually, he caught the dog and put it on the lead, but he didn't seem to tell it off, or rebuke it in any way.

By this time, another woman had appeared on the path coming out from Hay, with her dog on a lead. She exchanged words with the man - again, I was too far away to hear what they said. I had got to the part of the path next to the beach, where a woman with a baby on her hip had come up and was watching the man trying to catch the dog. I spoke to her, and tried to impress on her the seriousness of the situation.
"We didn't know there were any sheep in the field," she said. "We haven't been here before."

Wales is still on lockdown.

Now, I used to have a dog, and I made damn sure that she was trained not to chase sheep. If it had been her in the place of the dog yesterday, I would have been bellowing at her loud enough to be heard two fields away - and she would have come when she was called. But since I was aware that the sheep were in the field, she would have been on a lead anyway.

I spoke to the other local lady as I went on. She was fuming, too.

So, just to make it completely clear:
Wales is still on lockdown - the visitors should not have travelled to Hay in the first place.
It is the responsibility of dog owners to keep their dogs under control - and to know where the dog is at all times. These people didn't notice their dog running off to chase the sheep until it was too late.
It is the dog owner's responsibility to make sure there are no sheep in the field.

Sketching Dogs

While Sally Matthews is exhibiting her sculptures and drawings of dogs at the Drawing Room, she has also been there on Mondays and Wednesdays with the offer to sketch the dogs of people who come in. I saw her busily sketching on Monday, the dog lying on the floor with the owner sitting to one side.
She said, in a post on the Hay Community Facebook page, that each sketch would take about 15 to 20 minutes, and that the owner of the dog could take a sketch away for a donation (suggested £20) to the Many Tears dog rescue charity, where her own dog came from.
The sessions have been booked up, and there are a few on a waiting list in case someone drops out!

Mouse Castle

The weather on Friday was hot and sunny, so I went on a walk up to Mouse Castle.

Heres the stile into the woods, which are owned by the Woodland Trust. On one side it's short cropped sheep meadow, and on the other, glorious spring flowers lined the path - wood anemone, bluebells, celandines, all white and blue and gold.
The path was a bit more muddy than I'd anticipated (I was wearing light pumps) but the mud was pretty easy to get around.
I got as far as the spring and stopped. It was really too hot to climb higher.

On the way back, I went down Nantyglasdwr, past the farm, where a young sheepdog barked at me. It was only because he was nervous of me. The farmer came out to apologise - he was trying to train the pup not to bark at passers by - so he held the dog, and I let it sniff my hand, and made a fuss of it, and then it was fine.

Memorial to a Small Dog

Sally from Fleur de Lys antique shop called me over this morning to tell me that Lucy, her dog, had died. Lucy was the constant companion of Brian for 16 years (this is not the same Brian that takes me over to the Baskie every week), and she was a lovely little dog.
So this memorial has gone up in the window of Booths.
Brought a lump to my throat.

Dogs in Shops

This sign was on the door of Flow, the clothes shop on Castle Street yesterday.

There will now be a Short Intermission....

I will not be online much for the next week, as my Young Man is coming to visit.
So, here is a picture of some wolfhounds (and their people) seen in Hay last week:

Going to the Vet at Kington

We were on the way back to Hay after climbing Brecon Cathedral tower (and here's a picture of the very top turret):

Before we climbed the tower, we had walked down into the woods surrounding the cathedral so that Denzel the Staffie could stretch his legs before he was shut in the car. Somewhere down there, he had got something in his eye, and Brian thought it best to phone the vet in Kington and take him over there to have it seen to.
A lot of people in Hay use the Kington vets. I'd never been before - I used to go to the Hay vets in Lamb House, before they moved to their new, purpose-built surgery on Forest Road, and I always found them helpful and friendly.
On the way, we passed the doctor's surgery - apparently they are finding it very difficult to attract new doctors to work there, even though Kington is a very nice place to live. This isn't just a problem in Kington - there's a more general shortage of GPs across the country.
The vets surgery is down a little lane just off one of the roundabouts on the edge of Kington - I don't know the names of the roads, but the nearest pub on the way into Kington from that roundabout is the Olde Tavern. We were going to the outside of the ring road.
Denzel, by this time, had managed to get the thing out of his eye - it was a piece of leaf that had been smeared across his eyeball. But Brian had been meaning to take him for some routine check ups anyway.
While they were in the consultation room, we started to notice how the building had been converted from something else. There was a broad stripe across the tiled floor, and near the end of the stripe was a brass fitting in the floor. Jane suggested that it had been the place where a sliding door/wall had been secured, so we went looking behind the reception desk for the other end of it - as you go in, there's a reception area with a little shop for dog leads and toys and chews and so on. One of the staff said that the building used to be a trouser factory. All the staff there seemed to be young women with their hair scraped up into a bun, and they were all very friendly and cheerful, even when we were asking them to move boxes so we could see if there was another brass fitting on the floor!
So, Denzel was fine, and we went back to Hay "the pretty way" - by the back roads, which made me laugh, because the main road is very pretty as well!

Small Business Saturday

The Thoughtful Gardener, who has moved down to Backfold from the Castle.

This shop was once part of the Five Star department of Richard Booth's bookshop, so called because it first specialised in military books, though when I first went in there it had become the science fiction department. Later it was divided downstairs, with Greenaways Books in one side and various different businesses in the other. For a long while it was the pet shop where my dog used to get her pig's ears - and other treats! She would sit about in the alley way while I was working in the Children's Bookshop (now an antique shop) and indicate to anyone who stopped to give her a fuss that they could buy her a treat if they wanted!

October Council Meeting - Planning, Gwernyfed School, Toilets, and Dog Poo

First of all, good wishes go to Nigel, the Town Clerk, who was rushed to hospital a few days ago.
Unfortunately for the Council, he was in the middle of doing several things that only he knew the details of - however, Heather stepped in as deputy Clerk for the evening.
One of these things was the electricity contract for the Council Chambers, which has been proving to be a nightmare to sort out. Apparently the Cheesemarket has been having similar problems with Ecotricity about their electricity contract, too.

The application for planning permission for the eighty houses on the edge of Hay has now been put in and the Council have 21 days to read through a document that's about four inches thick and make comments on the plan. It's very comprehensive, apparently, even including things like a dormouse survey. One of the councillors has been reading it online, from the Powys planning department. There will also be a public meeting shortly to discuss the plans.
Of particular interest to the Council was the "easement" that the developers had asked for, in order to drain the site across land owned by the Council. They could charge quite a substantial sum of money for this, though they still need to discuss it fully in the sub-committee meeting next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Steve Like is concerned about the sports and leisure facilities at Gwernyfed School. Last year he went to meetings where it was agreed to transfer the leisure facilities on the school property into the control of the school - and if the school closes, then the community facilities would close too. There has been no information at all from the County Council on this, though.

This year's Christmas Party for local old people will probably not be at the Swan this year. The hotel has been taken over by Llangoed Hall, and prices have risen somewhat. However, Picadilly Caterers from The Strand at Talgarth have given a much more reasonable quote, as long as the Council can find a hall to hold the party in. A few years ago, they tried the Masonic Hall, but there are problems of access there for disabled party goers. Picadilly Caterers are the ones who have the contract for the monthly luncheon club in Hay.

The Council website is almost ready to go! Giles just needs to do a bit of training with the people who will be updating the site.

A coin sorter has arrived, to count money from the turnstiles on the toilets - but Rob Golesworthy has tried it and can't get it to work for him. Heather will give it a trial run shortly. Fiona Howard suggested that a sign should be put up - "it only has to be laminated" - to explain why the toilets now have to charge 20p. She said that, when people are aware of the reasons, they are usually okay with it. However, there was a recent school trip that had problems because they weren't aware of the charges, and there weren't enough 20p pieces in the party to get them all into the toilets.
The Council have signed the loan agreement for the toilets, and the next step is to pay the contractor who did the upgrading work on them. Most comments about the toilets have been positive, praising the cleanliness (the cleaner is local).

Dog fouling remains a problem though - not quite so much with dog poo being left on paths, but with dog poo being picked up in plastic bags which are then flung into the bushes. More than one councillor has been round collecting them from the riverside path. At this point in the meeting, the lady sitting next to me in the public seats murmured that we should say that the riverbank is an SSSI, and maybe that would deter the dog poo flingers. In fact, the riverbank really is an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), so she has a point.

Small Business Saturday

The End - all sorts of interesting vintage items, including French linen.

This used to be a gift shop - the owner had a sweet spaniel, and kept dog biscuits behind the counter. My dog picked up on this very quickly, and always wanted to go in when we passed to say hello!

Before that, it was once the ticket office of the original cinema in town, and I think a bike repair shop.

Council Meeting - Town Plan, Rubbish, Buses and Tourists

Here's a good idea for getting younger people involved with formulating a Town Plan - get them to do it via the world of Minecraft! This is a serious suggestion, to get younger people "building" what they want to see in their area on the computer screen.

Meanwhile, problems with dog poo are continuing. The vets are keen to get involved, by providing poo bags, and more poo bins are needed too. They cost £138 each, apparently, but might be cheaper if the councillors provide posts to screw them too and do the work themselves (it's not all sitting around at meetings, being a councillor!)

Down on the Warren there's a problem with human litter - people having late night campfires, beer and (judging from the litter left behind) sex, on the riverbank. Which would be fine if they cleared up after themselves afterwards. The police are sending more patrols down to the Warren.

And just up from Lion Gallery, rubbish bags seem to be left outside more or less continuously, not just on rubbish day, which doesn't look very good in the middle of town. The Powys waste team are dealing with the problem though, partly by contacting the nearby residents. No-one was sure if the flats were holiday lets or not, in which case, holiday makers wouldn't be aware of which day to put rubbish out unless the landlord had told them.

Powys County Council are cutting £500,000 from the transport budget, but there will be no change to the 39 service to Hay. The councillors want more pensioners to apply for the bus passes they're entitled to, to show that there's a need for the bus services.

A recent survey showed that the patterns of tourism locally are changing. More people are staying overnight, which means a greater need for places to eat which are open in the evenings. There was agreement that there seems to be far too many cafes in town at the moment - but they all open in the day, and it would be better if some opened in the evenings. There was doubt, too, that all the cafes in town would be able to survive the winter when there are fewer tourists about.

Council Meeting - New Mayor, Dog Poo, Paths and Signs

It was time for the AGM again, so Fiona Howard stepped down as mayor, and Rob Golesworthy returned to the post, with Gareth Ratcliffe as his deputy. Gareth was asked to be mayor, but declined, partly because he's just been promoted in his job at the Co-op.
The next thing to do was make sure there were enough people on all the sub-committees. The new councillor, Richard, was ill so couldn't attend, but he had sent an email saying what his interests were. He was appointed to two or three committees, with the comment "We'll tell him what his interests are tomorrow!"
There was also the matter of councillors declaring their interests - there are forms to fill in, and the information will be made public. This is one of the reasons they need the website to be up and running - Giles is still being very slow, with excuses about his brother's broadband connection. The councillors, though, are getting impatient.

The new fence around the picnic area has reduced dog mess on the grass considerably, even though there are no gates. This will be monitored to see if gates need to be added, or if they can leave it as it is. They also intend to put up signs telling people to clear up after their dogs.
The pink paint sprayed on dog mess has also worked - leading to a 50% reduction in poo! There are thoughts of extending the practice to the streets of Hay - the paint is bio-degradable and washes away safely in the rain. They even have a volunteer sprayer, though they would like more people to come forward.

The Woodland Group are going to put steps in where the fence has been broken down and people have been making their own path to get to the railway path, to make it safer. They'll even put a sign up showing that it's a way to the Warren. This is mainly to stop people with gardens backing onto the path from making their own steps down.

The B&R are planning an article about the new Railway Walk (I've seen the little engine shaped signs already, showing the route) and have asked if any councillors will be available to have their pictures taken for the article.

The new charges for fishing licences along the Town riverbank have been set at £5 for a day, £15 for a week and £35 for the year, with under 16s going free. This is about half the amount the Warren is charging, "and it's really good coarse fishing". There was some sadness that there are fewer fishermen (or women) using the river now. There used to be people using the fishing platforms or wading in the river every weekend, but now they're a rare sight.

Plans for the new fingerposts (there was a grant) are well advanced. They are going to be black with gold writing, with Welsh above and English below. There are several Welsh speakers around who can check the correctness of the Welsh text. The National Park has said that advertising consent is needed to erect the signs, but this doesn't seem to be the case, and the permission is given by the Welsh Assembly.

A member of the public has reported a broken drain down at the Gliss, which may have happened when a contractor was working on the canoe landing stage - though they say they didn't hit the pipes. The original laying of the pipes may be at fault because they should have pea gravel round them as a shock absorber. So it will be attended to in due course.

NEWSFLASH for Dog Owners

Father Richard announced in church this morning that five dogs have died around Hay because someone has put poison down along the Riverbank walk.

This is not related to the spraying of dog poo fluorescent pink. The Community Woodland Trust have been doing this to highlight the dog poo problem in an attempt to make dog owners more responsible about picking up after their dogs, and the paint is bio-degradable and harmless.

Walking around Almeley

It was a golden afternoon. Brian had finished early in his shop, and I was outside doing a bit of weeding when he passed.
"Fancy a walk round the brickworks?" he asked.
So off we went to Almeley with the dogs.
On the edge of the village there's a railway line, with a tiny station that's no longer used, though the little house is lived in, and beside the railway line there was once a brickworks - the railway presumably being convenient to move the bricks to where they were needed. A little narrow valley runs below the railway line, with woods and a pretty stream, and cottages strung out along a narrow track. The dogs love it. It's almost like stepping back in time - none of the cottages can have been built in the twentieth century - they're all timber framed and brick infill (perhaps from the brickworks - we kept finding old bricks in the stream and embedded in the path). The path itself is part of Vaughan's Way, which is 17 miles long, between Kington and Bredwardine.
We emerged onto a tarmac road where a big timber framed farmhouse is being renovated. When we looked it up in Pevsner later, I think this must be Summer House.
The village is all spread out randomly, and a little further on we passed the Friends Meeting House, a charming little timber framed cottage which was built, according to Pevsner, in about 1672, as a meeting house. Just as we walked by, some Friends were coming out of a meeting, among them someone I know as Qlib from the discussion forum Ship of Fools! So that was an added bonus to the walk.
We ended up at the Bells pub, where I had a very nice half of Three Tuns XXX from Bishop's Castle brewery.
The pub has changed quite a bit since I first saw it, when I went in with some friends who were members of CAMRA, and found a surly landlord who hated CAMRA and blamed them because he was going to be forced to buy lined pint glasses.
The next time I went, he had gone, and a temporary landlady was there - she was lovely, and served giant Yorkshire puddings with all the meal inside them, which filled us up nicely.
And now it's a couple with children, and where one bar used to be they now have the village shop. The other bar was being treated as the family living room, where the children were watching TV, and the dogs were welcome inside. As we headed back to the car, the landlord was taking the kids out for a climb up the Twt, the castle mound in the middle of the village.
We walked back to the car, completing a full circle, past the late Medieval manor house, which is timber framed with brick infill, which gave it a nice warm glow in the evening light.
On the way back to Hay we passed through Eardisley, so we stopped at the New Strand for another half (for me) and diet Coke (for Brian). It's a warren of a place, with the cafe and bookshop and bar - where there was the most adorable Alsatian pup, who was being brought out to get her used to people. Brian always carries dog biscuits in his pocket - he gets them from the stall on Hay market - and the pup enjoyed them so much that her owner asked where he could buy them from.

That bar at Eardisley used to be the favourite drinking spot of Mr Penny, who lived at one of the sadder landmarks in Herefordshire until his death in a car accident a couple of years ago - a tumbledown old cottage at nearby Willersley. The house has just been sold, at an auction held at the New Strand, and the new owner hopes to renovate it. It'll be quite a job - it's been falling apart for years. A little while ago one of the national tabloids (the Mail, possibly) did a full page spread of photos someone had taken when they managed to get inside - the rooms are full of vintage furniture and all sorts of personal belongings and toys from Mr Penny and his brothers' childhood, coronation mugs and china, that looked untouched for years. I think Mr Penny actually lived in a caravan parked out the back. Before it was a private house, it was a pub and cider house called the Old Crow. I hope the new owner can bring it back to life.

Temptation!

Coming home from work this evening, I came across a small cavalcade led by a neighbour pushing a supermarket shopping trolley down the road - full of sheepdog puppies! She had a small mattress for them to stand on. Mum sheepdog was trotting along by the side, and their other little dog was scampering up and down going "Look at me, too!".
There are about eight of the puppies, half of them black and white, and half of them brown and white, some with blue eyes - and they are entirely adorable!
But I can't have a dog just at the moment - I'd have to leave it at home all day, which wouldn't be fair....

Council Meeting - Mobile phones and disabled access

I had been completely unaware, as I don't have a mobile phone, but reception around Hay lately has been rubbish, with one network down completely for ten days.
Steve Like brought this up at the council meeting. He was incensed that Vodaphone and Orange were so useless, and wanted a letter to be sent, protesting in the strongest possible terms, to the Chief Executives!
He was concerned that small businesses that depended on using mobile phones had been losing business over the period when they were uncontactable, and that there could have been problems with emergency calls for ambulances. He was reminded that it might seem a bit strange to the public for a councillor to be making such a fuss for better mobile coverage so soon after all the trouble about the siting of the new mast up Forest Road - and emergency calls can be picked up by any network, so it doesn't matter if one is down for that.
At the moment, Kirsty Williams has a campaign running to make mobile phone network providers more accountable, so it was thought that the best course of action was probably to forward all the information about the loss of signal to her so she could take the most appropriate action. Apparently the mast at Clyro was vandalised recently.

There was also concern about Peter Lloyd, who was brought back onto the council despite his illness, and has been unable to attend recent meetings because he can't manage the stairs. There is a legal requirement to make council meetings accessible for all members of the public who wish to attend (as well as all councillors), but Rob Golesworthy seemed to think that this did not apply to an old building like the Council Chambers, which would be difficult and expensive to make accessible (someone mentioned the ridiculous disabled toilet on the same floor of the building as the council chamber, which no-one in a wheelchair could ever get to). Other public spaces in Hay are also mostly inaccessible, so moving meetings would also be difficult - and some of the councillors are very much wedded to the tradition of having the council meetings in the dedicated council chamber and nowhere else. Second hand chair lifts were mentioned. Steve Like said that, if the meetings were held in the school, he would resign because he refused to spend a whole evening sitting on a children's chair. The Library is accessible, but there is an issue with holding a public meeting there because people might walk off with library books.
(However, if I remember rightly, this will be exactly the situation when the new school finally gets built, because the design shows that public meetings will be happening in the same space as the library).

Other matters discussed were the Hay Hotfooters race in March, which will be starting from Kilverts, with one mile, three mile and six mile options. Members of the council usually support the race, which is sponsored for charity, but Steve Like admitted that last time he walked the one mile course, while having a couple of fags on the way!

Last meeting, a letter was sent to HADSCO (the Sports Association) to ask about the money that was raised a few years ago for a new community centre. The council has now had a letter back saying that they still have plans to build (though not under the auspices of the County Council, which is going down the route of combining community facilities with the school) and could they please have the £15,000 they were offered by the council? It was pointed out that some money had been given to the Sports Association at the time because they had spent so much of their own cash on planning matters, but the rest had been held in reserve and was intended to be for running costs, not the costs of building.

Dog poo is a perennial problem, and Gareth reminded everyone that every public litter bin in Hay is able to accept dog poo bags, so there's no excuse for not picking it up.
The dog poo baskets on the railway line were removed because they were too successful, even unto overflowing!

And by that time it was nearly quarter to eleven, and I was doodling to stop myself nodding off!

Small Business Saturday

The Chinese Takeaway on Lion Street.
The youngest daughter of the family, Bic, used to come round to walk Islay when I was working in Backfold, when she was around ten years old. The first time she volunteered, I was a bit uncertain about letting her take the dog, and she was gone so long I thought she was never coming back! When she did finally turn up, Islay was exhausted, but very, very happy, so I never worried about trusting her with the dog again. The last time I saw her, she was studying at Reading University.

Dog-Sitting - and Customer Service

I've been away from the computer for a couple of evenings, dog-sitting for friends. It's been lovely - a delicious meal and a bottle of beer by a real fire, with a sweet young lurcher cuddling up to me (as well as a dog with such long legs and narrow body can cuddle) and a good book.
I was reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice, a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes stories where he teams up with a young woman after he has retired to Sussex to keep bees. And about half way through the book, while investigating a kidnapping case, they come to the Brecon Beacons (though Laurie R King, the author, is careful not to name any of the villages they pass through)!

Meanwhile, Athene English on Castle Street has been displaying some tweed jackets outside her shop for a week or two, and I was rather taken by a brown one. A couple of days ago, I decided to pop in on the way back to work from my lunch break to see if it would fit.
When I got there, the jacket was hanging outside, but there was a "Back Soon" sign on the door, which was locked. So I tried the jacket on in the street - and it fitted beautifully.
While I was waiting for Athene, or one of her assistants, to come back, Tim the Gardener came by to take her dog for a walk, so I told him why I was waiting. He went round the back to get in through the garden, but I had to go back to work.
About an hour later, Tim strode into the shop and tossed the jacket onto the counter. "Here's your jacket!" he said. When he'd got back from walking the dog (they went up Cusop Dingle a fair way) Athene and co. were back in the shop - they'd gone out for their staff Christmas lunch. So I paid Tim and back he went.
It's the sort of service you wouldn't get from a chain store!

Council Meeting - A Safe Place to Live

There were only seven councillors at the monthly meeting last night, including Mr Gittins, the newest councillor - the ombudsman decided that the rules had been followed and he was allowed to be a Hay councillor after all. There was some annoyance that a letter had been printed in the Brecon and Radnor about the numbers of people who had voted for the new councillors as opposed to the existing councillors - Nigel the town clerk contacted them to say the numbers were inaccurate, and gave the correct figures, but the Brecon and Radnor didn't print that, but there wasn't much enthusiasm for chasing up the B&R for a correction now.

The election of new councillors to fill the places left vacant by the resignation of Rhona Muirhead and Sue Felgate will be held sometime towards the end of December. The Community Centre, which is usually the Polling Station, is no longer suitable - it has deteriorated somewhat since it has closed - so other sites are being looked at and the front runner seems to be the Bowls Club, which has the space and the parking to make it convenient.

Inspector Scrace, the temporary Inspector for Breconshire (though he hopes to become permanent) had been invited to speak. There hasn't been a police report for some time, as PC Fion Thomas was ill, and then went off to work on a wildlife crime job - something he is apparently very good at - so Insp. Scrace was able to give a few up to date figures.
Powys Police are the best in the UK in detecting crimes, but their priority is prevention, and it seems to be working.
There were 16 violent crimes in the Breconshire area since April this year - and last year there were 37.
There were 21 sexual offences this year, and 41 last year.
There were 12 burglaries this year - two of houses and the rest of sheds - and 14 last year, with two being of houses again.
There were 22 thefts this year, including shoplifting, and 22 last year.
So not such an improvement there, but these are crimes that are hard to solve.
There were 31 cases of criminal damage this year, compared to 46 last year.
There were 26 drugs offences this year, of which five were for trafficking and 18 were for cannabis possession - I missed the figures for last year.
There were 174 complaints about anti-social behaviour this year, including boy racers, compared to 232 last year.
The presence of a PCSO has helped a lot around Hay. The present PCSO is Helen Scott, and everyone agreed it was good to see her out and about. The Inspector is also keen to see the PCs out and about, rather than centralised in Brecon Police Station waiting to be called out. He said that one of their priorities is policing the border between Wales and the West Mercia police area, because it was fairly common for criminals to come across and then disappear back to England.

While the Inspector was available, he was asked about dog fouling - but said that getting PCSOs to issue fixed penalty fines was not a priority for them. Another option that Ellie Spencer has been exploring is to give the Traffic Wardens the ability to issue fixed penalties (which are now £80), as well as to recruit dog walkers to become volunteer community dog wardens, to give out poo bags where necessary and report on people who allow their dogs to foul the paths. The volunteering wouldn't mean doing anything they weren't already doing, as it would just mean taking notice of other dog walkers when they went out normally with their dogs, but they would have training from Keep Wales Tidy. There is a scheme running in Hereford which covers dog fouling, fly tipping and graffiti, and they have been talking to Ellie, too.