Parents horrified as Edinburgh factory boss defends flicking dog mess onto school route

Douglas Slight

Carpentry chief Douglas Slight sparked outrage after being spotted shifting faeces outside his Wallyford factory.

But a spokeswoman said Mr Slight was spurred into action to shame “ignorant” dog walkers to clean up after their pets and had no idea the path was used by pupils. It is understood the dog mess was collected from around the estate and deposited on a grassed area near the right of way path.

“It’s all blown out of proportion,” she added. “We’ve tried for years, we’ve put bins up, we’ve put doggy poo bags up to try and help the dog walkers but they don’t seem to do anything.

GV of a path between Wallyford Industrial Estate and Wallyford Primary that has been littered with dog excrement on purpose, it is believed

“We’ve even tried to plant some bushes in that area and they’ve been ripped up.”

Horrified parents of pupils at the newly opened £18.9m Wallyford Primary slammed Mr Slight’s “weird” behaviour on social media.

Mum Megan Coyle Doman posted: “Totally couldn’t believe my eyes, it was none other than Douglas Slight owner of Slight and Sons.”

And Craig Laidlaw wrote “I’ve actually seen him doing that before outside his offices. He told me he was fed up of folk letting their dogs s*** on the grass outside his offices and not picking it up so he was there flicking it out of the grass onto the pavement.”

But the Slight & Sons spokeswoman said her boss was merely removing it from one part of his land to another.

“Just to get the record straight we were unaware the school had actually opened and it’s not exactly a safe thoroughfare for schoolchildren to walk through,” she added.

“It’s an industrial estate and we were unaware that this was a shortcut that was used as access to a new school.”

“It wasn’t targeted in anyway at the schoolchildren. We just relocated the dog mess to an area where the dog walkers have to access.

“It’s a right of way. We’re quite happy for people to walk through but when the school relocated to the new development people never thought they’d use a shortcut through the industrial estate.

“We’ve got lorries coming here and cars coming round – probably a bit too fast. It’s not really a safe shortcut for schoolchildren and we probably will be taking it up with the roads department.”

She said the family joinery firm, founded in 1948, welcomed any suggestions of how to deal with dog mess on the Wallyford Industrial Estate.

Mr Slight, grandson of the firm’s founder, had put up signs warning pet owners and even installed bins.

“It’s just ignorant of people to walk their dogs and not clean up after them,” added the spokeswoman.

She told how Mr Slight had an “altercation” caught on CCTV with a man who “kicked out” and used some “quite nasty language” over his dog mess removal.

Skilled craftsmen hand-make furniture for homes and businesses at the Salters Road site.

The spokeswoman said of her boss. “He takes great pride in maintaining the area and we get no help from the council.

“Even the pavements which are council property, we maintain all of them.”

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