To consider the attached report of the Head of Regulatory Services.
Minutes:
The Head of Regulatory Services presented the report on the Public Spaces Protection Order.
Dover District Council’s first Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) had come into force on 27 July 2015 and created 4 offences as followed:
The PSPO was renewed for a further 3 years in July 2018. However, during the renewal process consultees identified 7 areas, outlined below, which were not included in the initial consultation. These were as followed:
In response to this, the Council had undertaken consultation on the seven areas above and had received 275 comments in total. These broke down as follows:
There were concerns expressed that in the case of some of the proposed PSPOs there was a balance between the number of supporting and objecting comments and that without the detail of the comments it was difficult to assess the justification for the decisions being recommended by officers. The exceptions to this were the Children’s Play Area Whitfield Recreation Ground, the St Augustine's Churchyard, East Langdon and Hamilton Road Cemetery, Deal where the responses where there was a clear outcome in the consultation and the consensus of opinion amongst Members was supportive of these proposals.
In response the Head of Regulatory Services advised that she would ensure that Members were provided with a breakdown of all the responses received.
Members queried whether, given the restrictions on green spaces where dog walking was permitted, the Council had considered the creation of a dog park specifically for this purpose and were advised that the possibility of such an area had been investigated by officers.
The Chairman suggested that if Members still had concerns with the proposed PSPOs following the circulation of the full responses they could call it in.
RESOLVED: That it be recommended to Cabinet:
(a) That the variation of the Public Spaces Protection Order (Dover District Council) 2018 for the Children’s Play Area Whitfield Recreation Ground, the St Augustine's Churchyard, East Langdon and Hamilton Road Cemetery, Deal be endorsed.
(b) That the Head of Regulatory Services be requested to provide a copy of the responses to the other locations to the members of the committee prior to the expiry of the call-in deadline.
Supporting documents: