A WOMAN made a repugnant discovery while she was out walking her dog.

Julie Salter, of North Nibley, was out taking an afternoon stroll with her dog when she came across a bag dumped on her land at Warend Hill.

Used to having items dumped on the verge of her small holding, Mrs Salter assumed the black bin liner would be filled with household rubbish, but on closer inspection she discovered the bag was actually full of excrement.

She said: "I could see a bag on the hedge and thought someone had dumped rubbish. I went to move it and it was full of human excrement. It was quite repulsive."

After making the unfortunate discovery last week, Mrs Salter rang her Stroud District Council for help, only to be told, to her horror, she should clean it up herself.

Mrs Salter said: "I rang Stroud District Council because I thought it might be considered an environmental health issue, but they said they wouldn't come out.

"I know with fly tipping that this is the response they give because it is on private land, but with a health hazard like this they should do something.

"They said they might come out but would charge and suggested it would be better if I removed it myself.

"I was disgusted so I said I would leave it out for their weekly collection next week.

"In this day and age to be expected to remove such items is appalling."

However, since receiving a further complaint from Mrs Salter, officers at Stroud District Council have decided to make an exception in this instance.

A council spokesman said: "Normally we do not use taxpayers' money to clean rubbish from private land, however, this is a particularly nasty and unpleasant incident and therefore we are going to make an exception in order to help this lady out."

Mrs Salter said: "This is a good result because we still didn't know what we were going to do. It's a shame they couldn't just do this in the first place."