I AM writing to express my disappointment about the state of the cycle path. I emailed last year about this problem and the result was that Fife Council cleaned it up quite well until dog owners have now started to allow their dogs to use the grass verges along the path as a toilet without cleaning up. I counted no less than 38 piles of dog poo on the grass verges and 35 piles of horse dung, up to Gowkhall.

I emailed and complained to Fife Council about this. They replied that horse dung is not regarded as dangerous to human health and it is not illegal for horse riders to let their horses dung on the path.

However, they are encouraged to use the verge and let the horses dung there but this rarely seems to happen. They would also send out ‘Code of conduct for horse riders’ leaflets to local stables.

I walked the distance to Gowkhill to get an idea of the amount of mess and count and photograph it, as I had noticed during my jogging and cycling sessions how bad it now is.

It isn’t much fun constantly dodging horse dung, no matter how safe it is for humans. Just because it’s legal, does not make it right. I think it is very selfish, inconsiderate, antisocial, unfair and plain wrong of horse owners and dog owners to behave like this.

I even had a very friendly chat with a local stable owner adjacent to the path, who owns at least four horses, who denied her horses were involved, although their stable is right beside the first access path to the cycle path. She assured me that – in spite of her horses being “innocent”, if it made me feel better, she would go and clean up the mess from the access path. Yet days later, when I went to check, nothing had been done. This proves yet again that her and others are selfish, uncaring and irresponsible because the law allows them to do so.

I wonder how long it will be before a cyclist, walker, jogger, child slips, falls and crashes on the wet, slippy horse dung (as there is so much of it now) and has to sue the stable owners or/and Fife Council, but worse even, become contaminated with dog poo and become very ill.

Name and address have been supplied