A local authority in Canada has apologised after dumping chicken droppings in an attempt to drive away homeless people.

According to CBC, the ploy - near Gladys Street, in Abbotsford - came to light when homeless activist James Breckenridge wrote a column about it on the Abbotsford Today website titled "This stinks."

Breckenridge told The Tyee website: “Besides the dumbness of using chicken material in light of bird flu and then the big avian kill we had here not that many years ago, this camp is beside one of (the) major thoroughfares: there's a set of railroad tracks and this is a path that most people use to cut across it.

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“So you've got all this material being gone through by all these people and tracked all over the place in the city.”

According to Breckenridge the town, in British Columbia, about 45 miles east of Vancouver, has been waging an "ongoing war on the homeless," and Breckenridge wrote that he "would never have expected, would never have anticipated, Abbotsford’s mayor and council sinking so low."

Abbotsford city manager George Murray said: “As city manager, I take this situation very seriously and retain full responsibility for the manner in which we dealt with this incident.

“I am deeply sorry for our actions.

“The city will be removing the manure from the site and working closely with our community partners and the people impacted over the next few days to collectively resolve this issue."