In town and village halls the length and breadth of the country there’s an issue that inflames like few others.
I’m not talking about immigration, budget cuts or crime.
I’m referring to dog poo.
Ask any local councillor and they will tell you that dog fouling is one of the problems they most frequently get complaints about.
If you can stomach it, try starting a conversation about dog fouling and you’ll find everyone has a gut-churning story to tell about scraping it off their shoe or, worse, washing it off a child’s hands.
Despite the best efforts of communities to clean up their streets, there can be few places free of the irresponsible few who fail to pick up behind their pets.
And boy, do those few rile the rest of us who have to dodge their dogs’ doo-doo or, if we’re particularly unlucky, extract it from the soles of our boots.
Last week we heard that in Fife the police and council have decided to team up to use CCTV cameras in their efforts to collar those responsible so they can be fined.
While we do have an army of enforcement officers ready to take to task any offenders, their hands are tied by legislation which requires them to witness the dirty deed.
And dog fouling fiends tend to do the dastardly under cover of darkness or when no one else is watching – particularly not when there’s a uniformed official hanging around.
So while you’re likely to see plenty of dog mess in streets, parks and on beaches across Fife, there were only 29 fixed penalty notices handed out region-wide last year.
The CCTV campaign will only run for a short time, but I hope that plenty of people will be caught out and brought to justice.
It will be good to hear about fines being dished out to those who think they are above bending down, bagging and binning.
I only wish we could hand them a pile of bags and dispatch them to rid our public parks of their disgusting mess instead.