Agenda item

The Council’s existing borough-wide Public Space Protection Orders (PSPO) for the control of dogs expired on 18 October 2023.  

On 11 September 2023, the Lead Member for Community Safety and Cohesion ratified the approval made by the Director of Environment and Resident Experience on 8 August 2023 the decision to consult on the extension of the existing PSPOs and the purpose of the report was to present the outcome of the consultation and to seek approval for the extension of the PSPO to 30 April 2025.

The Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Cohesion RESOLVED to Approve the extension of the borough-wide dog control PSPO until 30 April 2025.

Reasons for Decision

PSPOs were intended to help ensure that the law-abiding majority could safely use and enjoy public spaces. They were introduced by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and were intended to deal with a behaviours that were detrimental to the local community’s quality of life, by imposing conditions on everyone using the area, subject to limited exemptions. 

On 20 October 2017, Haringey replaced its Dog Control Orders with a PSPO, with requirements and prohibitions mirroring the previous conditions.  Following an extensive consultation process in 2020 the PSPO was varied and extended to 19 October 2023. 

The PSPO may be extended more than once if the local authority was satisfied on reasonable grounds that doing so was necessary to prevent:

(a) occurrence or recurrence after that time of the activities identified in the order, or 

(b) an increase in the frequency or seriousness of those activities after that time. 

Residents made reports to the Council through several different Mechanisms. It could be direct to the Council’s cleansing contractors Veolia, or through frontline services to the ASB Waste Enforcement, or through an online ASB report to the ASB Enforcement Team 

The Council’s contractor Veolia is responsible for clearing dog faeces from Haringey streets. Residents made 1041 reports to Veolia requesting the removal of dog faeces from the streets within the borough during the period of August 2021 – July 2022.

During the period of Oct 2020 - July 2023, the Council’s frontline services received 108 complaints about dog fouling and 8 dogs not on a lead. In addition, in the period April 2021 to December 103 ASB reports were made to the Anti-Social Behaviour team for dog related issues, these included dog fouling, dogs out of control and dogs off lead

Initial discussion with the Police, Councillors and other community representatives had indicated that there was an appetite to consider varying and possibly expanding the conditions of the PSPO to address wider community concerns. To enable full, meaningful consultation and co-production of future conditions, the views of the public on extending the current PSPO were sought and 93%, 39 out of 42, of respondents agreed with this approach.

It was expected to take approximately 12 months to fully investigate the issues that had been raised and undertake full, meaningful consultation and co-production of any future PSPO prohibitions.  It was therefore proposed to extend the current PSPO to 30 April 2025. 

A Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPO) set clear conditions for the use of public areas and enables officers authorised by the Council and Police Officers to engage individuals and educate them about their responsibilities whilst they were responsible for a dog, or dogs, and consider any reasonable excuses or exemptions that may apply to the individuals, and take action, such as issuing a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN), if appropriate.

This was an important tool for the local authority to ensure that public spaces and amenities are clean and could be used safely.

Alternative options considered 

Not to extend the PSPO.  If the PSPO conditions were to expire it would be necessary to remove all related signage and it was likely that the issues it was introduced to address will recur. 

The expiration of the PSPO would also limit the options for Council and Police officers to take action to address behaviours that had a detrimental effect on the local community. 

Allowing the PSPO to expire was not recommended.