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Camden New Journal - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 19 April 2007

Cllr Mike Greene

U-turn hint over dog control orders

Environment chief says measure could be ‘draconian’

THE man behind proposed dog laws which could see owners fined £1,000 for walking pets off the lead appeared on the verge of a U-turn after he admitted last night (Wednesday) that the powers were draconian and the consultation “a failure”.
Conservative environment boss Councillor Mike Greene told the New Journal that the council had launched a flawed consultation into proposals to allow on-the-spot fines for walking dogs off the lead on the street, walking more than four dogs at a time, and running them outside council-designated ‘dog exercise areas’ in Camden parks.
He said: “It was a failure – there are clearly lessons to be learnt. It was not clear enough and it was far too legalistic and it didn’t make it clear that this was an issue on which we were genuinely consulting.”
He said he accepted accusations that some of the measures were draconian. “I don’t think anyone can describe a proposal that all dogs must be kept on a lead everywhere in the borough except in some small areas in parks as ‘mild’,” he said.
More than 2,000 residents bombarded the council after the New Journal exposed the plans in February.
Council press officials said this week that dog control masterminds from street environment services were still too busy dealing with responses to comment publicly, a week after the consultation closed on April 12.
Sheer weight of public response had already forced the council into extending the consultation beyond an original closing date of March 15.
Cllr Greene said the overwhelming message from his meetings with residents had been that most of the proposed measures – including those to do with owners picking-up dog faeces – were reasonable.
“The one that is causing concern is without doubt the last – that dogs are to be kept on the lead in parks,” he said. “This is making people much more worried than the others. Everyone was interested in this and rightly so.”
The divide was shown at Monday’s full council meeting when two members of the same party gave passionate speeches on two sides of the issue.
Conservative councillor Kirsty Roberts blasted owners of vicious dogs on estates.
She said: “This is a crime that’s going on here in Camden – we have people who live on our estates being intimidated by dogs that are being used as weapons as clearly as knives or guns.
“Those tenants who live in these estates who have dogs – they are reported and they are known to use dogs as weapons… What is being done?”
But her Tory colleague Cllr Chris Philp, owner of four-year-old collie-cross Bobby, said: “These proposals look draconian indeed – I think some measures go beyond targeting bad dogs and go towards curtailing freedoms. You don’t want these to be the new version of the parking enforcement regime.”
In a letter to this week’s New Journal, he described some of the powers as “not reasonable” and “absurd”.
Nine protest groups sent petitions totalling 1,300 signatures to the Town Hall campaigning against the dog control orders, while officials received 554 questionnaires, 98 letters, and 700 emails.
A council press official said: “We are very pleased with the number of responses we received on the Dog Control Order consultation. On initial inspection, the responses look like a real mix favouring the various alternative options available.
“The job now is to sort them out and to make some recommendations bearing the results in mind.”

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I live near Primrose Hill & don't own a dog but surely the law that was brought in a few years ago that certain breeds should be muzzled could be controlled more tightly. Allow the poor innocent ones to roam freely, any body can tell a vicious dog particularly the owner.
Melvyn Maltz