A row has broken out after a Bradford councillor was accused of spraying “unreadable graffiti” on pavements in Baildon as a dog fouling deterrent.

Liberal Democrat campaigner Ian Lyons, of Cliffe Avenue, is calling for the village’s Tory councillors to clean up the “mess” caused by spray-painting through a stencil to create anti-dog fouling symbols on paths in Baildon.

Councillor Debbie Davies (Con, Baildon), admitted she did not have permission to stencil the yellow motifs – showing a crossed-out dog and the slogan “clean it up” – on public highways, but said residents had contacted her since asking for her to stencil the symbols near their homes.

Mr Lyons complained after Coun Davies was pictured in a Baildon Conservatives newsletter with the stencil and a can of spray paint.

He said: “The Conservative group put out these leaflets showing off that they had done this, so they are clearly claiming responsibility.

“I went down to have a look and you can see it is a bit of a poor effort and a bit of a mess.

“You can hardly even read what it says. It is just graffiti.”

Mr Lyons contacted Bradford Council and was told its highways department “did not approve” of spray-painting the pavements.

He said: “I think the Conservative councillors should go and clean these up, remove them from the pavements and do something more responsible with their time.

“This is not going to change anybody’s attitude. What we need is to start handing out some fines.”

Coun Davies said: “I have been told by (the Council’s) highways department that I could put them on snickets, but they have said that they do not want them on the public highway. We were trying to do something quite different.

“Last week, I met Council officers and we were talking about all sorts of ideas for tackling dog fouling and we talked about this. They were quite keen on the idea.”

She said many Baildon residents had contacted her asking for similar symbols to be sprayed on snickets near their homes. She added: “Other councils in other areas use it all the time and it is perfectly legitimate.

“It could work all over Bradford district.”