Isn't it amazing how the daily trivia of ordinary people's lives gets Nanny into a right old state?
In the village of Kingslere, the parish council has recently approved controversial proposals for new dog control orders, despite strong objections.
It seems that Nanny objects to people walking more than three dogs at one time. This "dog limitation statute" has raised the ire of the villagers, and 63 signed a petition against the ban.
Needless to say, as with all of Nanny's "bright" ideas, the actual details of how this would be enforced don't seem to have been properly thought through. Concerns expressed included how the dog control orders would be imposed.
The parish council are of the view that a police officer, or dog warden, would be able to issue an on-the-spot £30 fixed penalty notice. Ah ha! Another method of raising taxes.
Marie Gundry, of Basingstoke Road, a lifelong villager who owns two dogs, has a disability and said after the meeting she relies on her dog walker, who owns three dogs, for help in exercising them.
Personally, I am a pussy man myself. However, I am sure that had Nanny consulted with the villagers a little more sensibly a reasonable solution to this would have been found.
The trouble is, Nanny doesn't listen.
So how long will it be before there's a mauling of council wardens trying to enforce this? I'm sure I wouldn't want to be handing a fine to someone in control of a dog pack
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDeleteI can see how this might escalate into demands and possibly actions to ban dogs.
I wonder if the village is having a problem with one or two individuals who may, for example, own 4 pit bulls or similar?
More broadly re Parish Councils:
Where I live we have a largish airport on one side of the village, a motor racing circuit next to that and the northern edge has a recently expanded and still expanding industrial area.
On three sides we are very close to 3 major roads of motorway or near motorway standard.
Several times a year there are major events at the race circuit giving pleasure to tens of thousand of visitors but obviously causing some traffic issues. Almost certainly the traffic issues could be resolved by building a few miles of link road infrastructure that would have all year benefits and repair the problems created by years of expansion without equivalent infrastructure upgrades.
It might also help if the road management had not been entrusted to what looked like YTS trainees but that is another matter.
Several tens of thousands of visitors, many camping over the weekend, also bring some revenue into the area.
The last major event was the weekend before last. (There is another which might not attract quite so many people but is it does many will be on motorcycles rather than in cars and so in theory require less road space.)
It was an event that was free to attend thanks to the auspices of a French car manufacturer and, the weather being reasonable, an estimated 40 thousand turned up on the Saturday and 80 thousand on the Sunday, though looking around the numbers looked optimistic to me, as such reports usually do.
The local parish council's response, reported in the local paper this week, was to demand that such free events be banned in the future in order to avoid the 'chaos'. Quite why free events should be banned but paid for events should not is unclear. Likewise why similar levels of congestion on many days and especially Friday afternoons that have been normal for the past decade or so do not seem to have attracted their attention goes uncommented.
I can understand why people might feel annoyed - but why not push for positive rather than negative solutions. Especially solutions that would add benefits for all in the parish? (A rhetorical question.)
Dear Ken,
ReplyDeleteI believe Nanny might well have something to say about how many pussies you may "walk" in public, so watch yourself. It's best to treat them as indoor pets.
"Quite why free events should be banned but paid for events should not is unclear."
ReplyDeleteSo these parasites can get their (large) cut, of course!
I personally don't like dogs, I too am a cat man. However, I respect the right of others to own and exercise their dogs, certain dangerous breeds excepted, provided that they are kept under control and that their owners remove any 'deposits' and don't leave them for others to walk in.
Grant; that's Donington I take it? The council there are notorious among the racing fraternity. The noise limits on the circuit during the week are the lowest in the country. A slight problem is that much of the time it's impossible to test the cars - you can't hear them for the jets taking off from East Midlands airport. Which doesn't have any such limits applied
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine has six Chihuahuas, do these count the same as six German Shepherds? or Great Danes?
ReplyDeleteWhat about professional dog-walkers who may take considerably more than three dogs at a time? Why stop at dogs? Impose the same limit on cows and a Council goblin can swoop on local farmers twice daily when taking their herd to and from milking.
Problem is, too many councils have a corporate mentality with the impression their entire reaaon d'etre is to "generate revenue streams" - management bullshit for "screw the punter". They forget they exist to serve the community, not act as some sort of feudal overlord exacting tithes at every move.
Pete
L of A said:
ReplyDelete"So these parasites can get their (large) cut, of course!"
Ah, but they will anyway. It will just come in a large lump sum from one major source. I can't see the difference as far as they are concerned.
Mind you the Parish Council will get little if any - which is why they and we would be better off, imho, pushing for investment in infrastructure that would benefit everyone 365 days a year rather than attempting to ban one 'free' event which helps no one.
Anon:
Yep, you're right up to a point, though other then the night flights (no night flying restriction there) the planes are generally much quieter then they used to be, though the Air Ambulance chopper often creates a lot of noise several times a day and the little single engined jobs can be noisy and slow to pass.
Personally I have no problems with the track and afaik the current noise restrictions, as agreed with the district councils since the track covers land in 2 districts and 2 counties I believe) are the same as for other tracks around the country.
Whether I can hear it on a given day very much depends on what is there and which way the wind is blowing. It's the same with the Download festival - noise depends on the weather. I am only a mile away according to Google earth.
BTW the flights are penalised for too much noise and taking the wrong flight path, etc. The Airport claims that the fines are re-cycled back in to the local community. Dressed up as Airport largesse of course.
(Why is the message about HTML tags at the bottom of the input window presenting in German?)
Grant asked, "Why is the message about HTML tags...in German?
ReplyDeleteClearly, someone in the Neue EU Geheim Staatz Polizei's 'Blogger Monitoring Department' has slipped up.
Watch closely, soon you will see the message revert to English (while the guy who screwed up will be hanged from a piano wire).
Grant
ReplyDeleteRe the "German question", I don't know...part of the main menu I use to build/post on this and my other sites has also be "Germanised" too.
Ken
"afaik the current noise restrictions .... are the same as for other tracks around the country."
ReplyDeleteFor race meetings and test days they are the same - but the number of those is strictly limited.
For other uses (i.e. trackdays) the noise limits are much lower: 98dB, compared with 106dB at Brands, Silverstone, Oulton, Snetterton .... and dB is a logarithmic scale, so that means your car has to be 4 times quieter at Donington
Anon: Yes I know the noisy days are limited but I was under the impression that many of the circuits are now seeking to enforce the 98db level.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting thing as that certain vehicles, not seeming especially noisy when in their proximity, seem to fail the test and others, sounding much noisier (I can think of one in particular that was physically painful to hear as it passed) do not.
Noise analysis must be quite an imprecise science though we are unlikely to see that confirmed anywhere.
Ken, thamnks for the input on the german question.
ReplyDeletePerhaps blogger/Google just think of people in the UK as being part of the EU. The EU has a rotating presidency so why not a rotating default language for the screens displayed?
Either that or someone has cocked up the templates.
What have you got set as a default language?
Interestingly I still, 90% or more of the time, have to go through the submit process twice before it will accept the Word Verification.
Most bizarre.
Grant
"I was under the impression that many of the circuits are now seeking to enforce the 98db level."
ReplyDeleteNone of the circuits I go to are planning on lowering their limits - although several of them are fighting objections to noise from people who moved into the area and are apparently shocked that a race track has cars driving around it!
I like pussies too. I also like boobs...
ReplyDeleteIf they live in a Parish they can easily change it. If 10 people demand a referendum on an issue the local parish council has to give it.