How many fixed penalties notices did the Council issue for dog fouling in (i) 2015 to date, (ii) 2014, (iii) 2013 and (iv) 2012?
Minutes:
‘How many fixed penalties notices did the Council issue for dog fouling in (i)
2015 to date, (ii) 2014, (iii) 2013 and (iv) 2012?
The Leader read out the response on behalf of Councillor Howard:
‘Calendar year 2012 – 0; 2013 – 1; 2014 - 0 but prosecuted the fpn that was served in 2013 and not paid; 2015 to date – 0.
There are a number of points I would like to highlight, to explain further, or that have been taken by way of mitigation:
1) The Environmental Health team has no officers available to carry out proactive patrolling, as resources are targeted to meeting our statutory responsibilities. However, the team will consider information provided by a resident where an individual is not picking up after their dog or allowing their dog to go unattended in a public area. This would generally entail a letter to the dog owner pointing out their responsibilities. If the resident was prepared to provide a statement that they witnessed an offence and prepared give evidence in court, we would consider, if satisfied that the evidence was robust, the service of a fixed penalty notice on the owner ( £75 payable in 14 days reducing to £50 if paid within 10 days).
In addition our officers provide signs/stickers where appropriate and give advice where complaints are received. Number of complaints we have received in recent years range from 155 in 2010, to 147 in 2014:
2) In May 2011 we agreed a Memorandum of Understanding with Gwent Police authorizing their officers to issue fixed penalty notices on our behalf if they witnessed an offence. Environmental Health administers the process. Huw Owen has given training to the PCSOs and issued them with FPN books (27 out of 28 PCSOs active in the Authority in May 14 had been issued with the books). However no FPNs have been issued in recent years by PCSOs and the feedback we have has is that they see very few incidents when out patrolling, and if dog owner spots a uniformed officer they tend to pick it up. Also fouling tends to occur outside normal working hours.
3) Environmental Health and the Waste team took the lead in developing a scheme called ' Give Dog Fouling the Red Card', which was piloted for 6 months in the Severnside area in 2014. The participating Town and Community Councils did perceive a reduction in fouling although it’s very difficult to quantify this. We tried to roll this out in Monmouthshire and details were sent to Town and Community Councils in January. Twelve councils who decided to participate and in May resources were handed out, all designed to raise awareness of the problem of dog fouling under the brand of 'Give Dog Fouling the Red Card'. (signs, spray paint, fouling bags etc provided).
This project follows the theme of local solutions to problems with the County Council providing guidance and some resource to T&CCs. There will be a further meeting later this year to get feedback and if considered useful and Tidy Towns funding is still available. Huw Owen will again write to all councils early next year inviting their participation.
4) The idea of engaging with a private company to carry out enforcement was considered by Graham Perry and Phil Murphy (as previous Cabinet Member for RER) in 12/13. As members will be aware some Local Authorities have gone down this route and in Blaenau Gwent for example hundreds of FPNs are served each year for littering/fouling.
It was decided not to go down this road for a number of reasons - the dog fouling element is not cost neutral as the contractors do not get the numbers of fpns served to make it so (littering especially cigarette butts are easily found outside bus/train stations, pubs etc but fouling offences are less easy to find); there is often negative publicity that can accompany the schemes, as was seen within Torfaen; and the officer time needed to administer the system and pursue prosecutions, because of the high level of non-payments is lengthy.
5) Lastly there are examples of where Town and Community Councils have joined together to provide dog bins in their community and have the waste removed by a separate contractor. Amongst others, Llanelly Community Council, Abergavenny Town and Llantilio Pertholey run this and would, no doubt, confirm that they are very well used.’