A new super group has hit the streets of Helston and they’re on a mission.

Forget the Fantastic Four or the X-Men, the Dog Poo Crew have arrived and they have excrement on their minds.

This band of intrepid faeces fighters have made it their mission to rid the town of dog mess; their brief: to stamp out, not in, the problem.

To this end a six-strong poop patrol, made up of deputy mayor Mark Upton, Cornwall Councillor Judith Haycock and town councillors Justine Hornsby, Martine Knight, John Martin and Aiden Harrison, have been out and about over the last week watching dog owners and ensuring all pooch ‘piles’ were picked up.

The first four patrols, at King George V playing field, resulted in 38 dog owners being spoken to with all, but one, having their own dog poo bags (with the one without only a young boy).

New Keep Britain Tidy stickers were also placed on bins, telling people that all litter bins, not just dedicated dog poo bins, can be used for throwing away bagged dog mess.

Falmouth Packet:

Mrs Knight, chairman of the council’s amenities committee, said: “All were very supportive of our efforts and one even took one of the new stickers to put on a bin outside where she lives.”

The crew will be randomly targeting areas in and around Helston over the coming weeks and, if anyone knows of somewhere with a persistent and identifiable problem – such as a particularly bad time of day – they should contact the town clerk’s office so that the intelligence can be passed on.

If fouling is witnessed councillors will be giving statements for prosecution purposes to Cornwall Council.

The team is taking up the mantle from town warden Craig Bowcutt, who has been tackling the problem head on, not literally, but has become too well known, with owners sometimes walking away as soon as they saw him.

PPV wishes the Dog Poo Crew every success at fighting this unsavoury issue, and would at this point make a slightly off the wall comparison to the similarly-named garage, grime and hip-hop group of the early 2000s, ‘So Solid Crew’ – but considering the subject matter, some things are best left to the imagination...