Question:
How can your dog control consultation be valid and meaningful when the terminology used on your website to describe the proposals is misleading?
Your Head of Environmental Services has said that the meaning of “in use” in the statement “The exclusion would apply to football and cricket pitches when in use” will not be defined until AFTER the consultation.
Most people will understand “in use” to mean “during matches and formal training sessions only” and therefore not feel the need to respond. If in fact the intention is to run the ban for the entirety of the sporting seasons this should be clearly stated and would no doubt provoke a different response from Council Tax payers.
How can this be a fair and reasonable way to run a consultation?
Answer:
This is a meaningful consultation – members will make a decision on whether to impose controls on some or all sports pitches. Depending on what this decision is, then further thought will be given to definitions or specific sites.
