Where there’s muck there is brass

Dog Fouling is a very lucrative business for SDC and their NSL.

Local authorities, district councils, parish councils and other bodies with statutory powers all have several powers to apply control to dogs. The Regulations commenced on the1st February 2013. SDC waited 7 years.

See: http://www.shepway.gov.uk/UserFiles/File/pdf/dog-control-maps/Orders/dog%20control%20order%20final%20dog%20fouling%2017%20dec%2012.pdf

If you fall foul of the Orders Shepway District Council have placed on designated land they are allowed to enforce a Fixed Penalty Notice [FPN] If you elect to fight the FPN  and lose a fine of one thousand pound may be given and a criminal record you will have.

Authorised officers of local authorities [NSL for and on behalf of SDC] may, under section 4(1) of the Act, issue fixed penalty notices to suspected offenders to discharge further liability for the offence. The Dog Fouling (Fixed Penalty)(England) Order 2002 amended the amount of fixed penalties to £80. Fixed penalty notices should not be issued where there is not sufficient evidence to prosecute where a fixed penalty is not accepted. It will do you well to remember that the legal burden of proving every element of the offence charged, and therefore the guilt of the accused, lies from first to last on the prosecution. In short, if you do not pay, SDC must prove your dogs “suspected behaviour” and provide every element of the evidence to the court through pictures, video or DNA, or by their NSL Dog Warden’s word.

Local authorities have the power to set the fixed penalty amount, but within the £50 – £80 range, Shepway has set their figure at eighty pounds. However, if SDC or any other authority elects not to set a rate, a default rate of seventy five pounds is automatically set.

The functions for which fixed penalty receipts may be spent have been prescribed, there is one exception: local authorities categorised by Order as “excellent” or “good”, and parish councils with “Quality” status, may spend fixed penalty receipts on any of their functions. Furthermore if local authorities lose their “excellent” or “good” categorisations, or if parish councils lose their “Quality” status, they may continue to spend receipts on any of their functions for one year from the date on which the “excellent” or “good” categorisations, or “Quality” status, were lost. Shepway is currently designated as good. But Shepway refuse to inform ShepwayVox as to how where and what it is spending the collected money.

Under this Current Council, we have seen the introduction of NSL Services, ultimately owned by an offshore in St Peter’s Port Guernsey. The contracts between NSL and SDC are “commercially sensitive” so refuse to release them and thus refusel Shepway residents from knowing how much these contracts cost us. Surely the people of Shepway have a right to know how SDC spend public money, if not surely SDC must understand that while they and NSL stay in the shadows few are going to believe they are doing things by the book.

The People of Shepway see this mess as a problem ShepwayVox notes frequently in both the Herald and the Express letters about lack of dog fouling bins and over flowing bins, surely the money they have been racking in since 1/2/13 could pay for a few more bins? Oh and why not get NSL to sponsor them