excessive wear on brake shoes

Anyone any ideas?

What do you mean by "brake shoes" Ronan? MTB, Road bike ......Car?

ah , the old dragging the foot along the ground technique !! are they a pair of Smithers Shoeses ?

take the shoes off and go brakeless

If you ran your last set of pads down to the metal you might have scored you disk/rotor which will wear your new pads down that bit quicker. New rotor?