Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club have appealed for people to respect their ground by not congregating in groups and picking up after their pets once they have fouled.
Posting on their website, the club say their clubhouse has been mothballed since 20 March in a bid to respect social distancing rules. In a statement today, they said:
“Although our clubhouse is now closed, our ground has been open to members & neighbours to use for exercise, however this is causing difficulties.
“However we knew that our Tofts Road ground could be used as a community resource and provide people with a pleasant place to walk or exercise during the current crises.
“We are aware our ground has proven popular with local people over the last few weeks through our CCTV footage, however we are also aware that we are now suffering from a large increase in dog fouling. Some dog walkers do use bags but then leave them in our bins, which again causes us a problem as we have cancelled our waste bin collections since our shutdown.
“It’s very unfair on our volunteers to be expected to clean up or dispose of other people’s dog fouling, and we would ask users to please remove their dog’s mess from the ground.”
The statement also called for people not to congregate in groups and socialise in the grounds. It added:
“We are also aware that over the bank holiday weekend people were using the ground to socialise in small groups, including bringing in drinks. This contravenes the government guidelines and we ask both members and neighbours to please refrain from socialising on the club’s grounds.
“Over the next 10 days we will be monitoring the situation. If the difficulties continue then we will have no option but to secure the gate stopping all wider usage, except for maintenance.
“This is not something the club wants to do, as we want people to benefit from our facilities in this difficult time.
“So please respect Tofts Road so that all our members, friends and neighbours can continue to enjoy the space.”