Croydon Council has said it attempts to locate owners of dead cats amidst concerns local governments dump felines in landfills.

Mandy Lowe from campaign group Cats Matter discovered that when some councils in the UK find a dead cat around the streets, the next step was to "send it straight to the local landfill site" instead of trying to locate the owner.

So she set out to change all of that.

"There is no mandatory requirement for local councils, who collect the deceased cats from the roadside, to scan them nor notify the owners," Ms Lowe said.

"Cats whose owners have gone to great lengths to ensure, should the worst happen, they are notified of their pets fate will never find out what has happened."

Last year the group started a petition to get councils to change their policies and start scanning the cats collected. The petition received just under 50,000 signatures.

As a result of this petition, 20 councils changed their policies to scan the animals and attempt to track down the owners.

Since then, the original petition has been taken down and reconfigured.

While Croydon Council was not one of the 20 which changed policy as a result of the petition, a spokesperson for council said they do in fact scan for chips.

“All deceased pets found in Croydon are brought back to the depot and scanned for a chip," they said.

"If we find one we inform the animal welfare officer who attempts to contact the owner.

"We urge people to collect their pets on the same day as we have no storage facilities.”