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Silence on dog problem
• WITH all the complaints and letters about the problem of dogs and their owners in council flats in Camden, one would surely have expected that the leader of Camden Council (or any councillor) would have contacted your paper with some kind of response indicating a plan of action. Why is there nothing from them?
In 2008, NHS figures showed nearly 3,800 attacks were taking place each year. These are people injured enough to have to go to hospital. There are countless others who suffer attack but by luck avoid injury – as happened to me when, on opening my front door recently, a dog belonging to a drug-dealing neighbour was there,
off lead, as if waiting for me so that I had to slam shut my door and wait there until it stopped growling and left.
The council must receive endless complaints yet despite it being a condition of the tenancy to control dogs, if one does complain one is told that action is too difficult unless a photo can be taken! This is clearly a ludicrous suggestion given the intimidation that exists. There is only one answer and that is to ban dogs in council properties unless it is one small pet belonging to a person of retirement age.
This is a quality of life issue as well as a “health and safety” issue. Perhaps a lawyer could contribute to the debate by informing us whether or not the council could be liable if, because of the poor management of dog-owning tenants, a tenant injured by a neighbour’s dog could sue the council?
I repeat, with summer coming it will get worse, so what is Camden Council doing about it?
Name and address supplied
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