Ban's Best Friend

Lars Stenberg

In urban areas, the best indicator that a park is safe to visit is whether or not there is anyone else in it. It is also widely accepted that the greatest deterrent to crime is the presence of other people. People are the unofficial policing that, by and large, makes public space work.

In some areas of the UK, dog owners are the only people who still go for a walk in the park. Dog walkers stroll in parks the way our forefathers used to do. Sometimes they stop and pass the time of day with other dog walkers. Teenagers discuss their charges with pensioners; women with men; strangers with strangers. They talk about their dogs the way parents talk about their children. Dog walkers represent a small chunk of civilisation that everyone else, hooked on reality television, has lost.

Many dog owners keep a plastic bag or two in their pocket, ready to clean up the inevitable. Many others do not and the results are left to lie and accumulate. The answer, then, seems obvious. Ban the dogs.

So, what happens when we ban dogs from our urban parks? Are these parks instantly transformed into a utopia for our children? Are the parks suddenly flooded with happy laughing families? Imagine the scene. We’re in the living room of an average family. It’s a commercial break in the middle of Big Brother. There’s an announcement that dogs have been banned from the local park. One member of the family – it doesn’t matter which one – leaps to their feet and shouts, “at last, the one thing that was stopping us going to the park has been dealt with. Now we can enjoy the park! Come on family, switch off the TV. Let’s go!” Can you picture it?

The reality is that without the dog walkers keeping a civilised toehold, many urban parks will slide further into anarchy. Dog walkers are among the few groups of park users doing something legal. Other regular activities in neglected urban parks include vandalism, substance abuse and prostitution.

On any given evening, when I walked my dog in a park right in the centre of Edinburgh (no names, but locals will guess), I would encounter rent boys and their clients, druggies, panhandlers and intimidating gangs of teenagers fuelled by solvents and cider. Sometimes there would be a couple of bewildered tourists wandering around looking scared and lost. If they needed to know the way out, who did they ask? Not the group of kids ripping the branches off the trees. Not the two men rustling in the bushes. They asked the dog walker.

Would this park experience be improved, as many people writing to their local paper believe, if dogs were banned?

Perhaps there could be a more creative solution to the problems of dogs than an outright ban. If dog owners are the only people still using some parks, then shouldn’t they be encouraged? In the same way as artists were used by cynical property developers in New York (and elsewhere) to spearhead the gentrification process, so dog walkers could be used as the avant garde of the regeneration of a park.

What about organised dog walks? There could even be groups that put people who no longer have a dog in touch with others who need their dogs walked. A rent-a-dog hut at the entrance to the park with eager pooches of varying sizes and styles lined up ready to accompany people on a civilized, and civilizing, walk. The dogs are rented by the hour, and come complete with leads, poo-bags, instructions and biscuit.

Dogs can be a problem in parks, but any decision to ban dog walkers cannot be taken in isolation. Any decision must be weighed against the list of other problems that parks face. Would banning dogs make our parks safer, or would it make other, more serious problems worse?

See also:

• Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996

Response

I am clerk to Aintree Village Parish Council; at various meetings, some Parish Councillors have expressed their concerns about the downside of dogs in its park. I read with interest the article on your website giving the other side of the story. Our problem is that some owners let their dogs off leads and we get complaints from parents who have brought their children to the park to use the play equipment as their children are often petrified. Our ground staff complain to us about the amount of dog dirt they have to pick up and also about cleaning it off the tractor and lawn mowers. Dads "walk" the football pitches before a match to, as best they can, clear the pitch of dog dirt so that their children do not get it on their bodies, kit or boots. Other park users complain to us about barking dogs when they are trying to enjoy the peace in the park. Perhaps this could be added to your article please?

Glyn Harris

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