I HAVE just spent a wonderful week in Scarborough with my family, staying in a fantastic holiday apartment looking down over North Bay.

The people of Scarborough were warm and friendly, the scenery was magnificent, and we found time to travel round the area quite a bit enjoying all that the region has to offer.

We come from Weymouth in Dorset, so are well aware of the challenges facing traditional British seaside holiday towns, and feel that in general Scarborough has managed to retain a lot of its charm.

However, there was one aspect of our visit which will be hard to forget, and sullied our view of the town in general. Put quite simply, it was the horrendous presence of dog poo carelessly abandoned in almost every public area. We just could not believe it.

It seemed that everyone had a dog (or several), and everyone took it for a lovely walk on the cliff paths or beach, and absolutely no one cared a jot about picking up their dogs' excrement.

Copious amounts surrounded the children's play parks, it was dotted all over pavements and paths, and as for the grassy areas and verges, my shrill shriek to my children for the week was "Watch out for dog poo, kids", wherever they went.

"There is no such thing as the dog poo fairy," as the ad campaign goes.

Certainly not in Scarborough it would appear, but nobody but a humble visiting tourist seems to care. Sort it out Scarborough.

Mrs J Brown, Weymouth.