A couple of residents have emailed us because they want to discuss some doggy issues. So here’s what they say -please feel to leave some comments:
Now spring is clearly here and the grass has been cut in Sweyne Park, we have been walking for longer and can’t help but notice the amount of uncollected dog mess.
We’ve had a dog for two years and always pick up, and know that the majority of people using the park do so too.
We wondered what might be done about the issue and have the following suggestions:
1. Money permitting, have a week-long blitz where council officers, helpers and volunteers greet dog owners, ask whether they have bags and collect opinions about the issue whilst ensuring people are clear that it is an offence to leave it behind (we would be happy to be part of this)
2. Provide cheap poo bags for use by people – this would require a small investment of a weather-proof receptacle by the council, but could be stocked cheaply by local dog owners (a bag of economy sacks from Asda/Tesco is around 30p and unlikely to be nicked by teenagers as the connotations of nicking a poo bag would not be cool!) We saw this system used in Cantabria in Spain (the local authority provided the bags too) and it worked well – no mess anywhere in that town as compared to others nearby. Even if this started with one receptacle near the car park, it would be a start
3. Increase the number of poo bins in and around the park – with the best will in the world some people don’t want to carry it once they’ve picked up, and there are relatively few bins, all near the edges of the park. Perhaps a couple near the top might help, perhaps near the benches?
4. A poster campaign using the existing boards on the entrances to the park showing why it is so important to pick up e.g. illness transmitted to kids to remind dog owners that there might be a consequence to them being too lazy/ill equipped to pick up
We hope this starts a discussion and through our chats with fellow dog walkers, we know there would be plenty of support for such campaigns/action. We really don’t want to get to a stage where dogs are banned from running around such a fabulous resource because of the thoughtless actions of a minority.Look forward to hearing from you,.
As a regular walker in Sweyne Park I fully support these suggestions. How about some more litter bins too?
As for dog bins, elsewhere in the district there seems to be a problem about emptying them in Cherry Orchard Country Park. I had the following email from a resident this morning:
“On Friday morning (24th) the bin was full to overflowing and a sack had been hung from the fence to take the excess.
I have just returned this morning (Tuesday 28th) the situation is unchanged save that there is a lot more waste. Clearly there has been no emptying done since last week.”
Yuck!
I just wanted to alert anyone with children who uses Sweyne Park about an incident on the weekend that I had in Sweyne Park with my two young children involving two very large dogs (Weimarers I believe) that were not on their leashes.
In summary, we came out of the playground area with the swings etc. and my children ran towards a large wall further into the park. As they approached the wall, I noticed two very large dogs that were not on leashes and called for my two children to come back to me. But, by this time, the two dogs had spotted them and started barking very loudly and circling and snapping at them in an extremely aggressive way. My two were absolutely terrified and I had to run up and grab them. What really shocked me was that the owner (a man) made absolutely no effort whatsoever to call off his two dogs (even when the children were clearly terrified) and did not apologise to me or make any indication that he was sorry for scaring my children. He then walked off with the dogs (now on leashes) down Salisbury close.