wightdogs.com ISLE of WIGHT DOGS and OWNERS

To all wightdogs members

Well firstly WE WON, the decision on the Amendments to the Dog Control Orders was taken at a meeting of the IW council Cabinet on Monday the 13th April and it was decided that there would be no amendments on Ryde East (Ryde Sands) In addition the Proposed ban at Saint Helens has been dropped.

"THAT the revised Dogs Control Exclusion (Isle of Wight) Order

as outlined in Appendix 1, but with no amendments relating to

the beach ban on Ryde East is adopted and approved."

The above taken from the Cabinet minutes which you can view as a pdf at the link below

http://www.iwight.com/council/committees/cabinet/13-4-10/minutes.pdf

This document also contains the following paragraph, which makes it clear that although we won this round the fight against the Anti-Dog regulations is far from over.

"The Cabinet Member  for Economy, Tourism, Leisure and

Planning stated that whist attaining Blue Flag was no longer

achievable in the short term; it was still the council’s desire to

see such status in the long term future."

Therefore wightdogs.com would suggest to the IW council that their correct approach, if the Blue Flag Award remains more important to them  than the views of us the residents, the Ryde Town Council, the local IW council members and the relevant Cabinet Member, would be to get Encams to bring the Blue Flag criteria for the UK in line with the rest of Europe and the World 

ie Not Anti-Dog, as that is what it is at present.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Cllr Wayne Whittle for his steadfast support throughout this campaign, along with the other Ryde IW council members. Also the members of the Ryde Town Council for their support and common sense approach. 

The wightdogs.com website will continue and we will be ready to fight for the rights of our dogs and ourselves whenever it is necessary to do so. We  have proved to this council, beyond doubt, that we are a force to be reckoned with.

Finally many thanks to you all for signing up, our strength is in our membership, so please encourage your doggy friends to join us and we will continue to achieve results.

Congratulations. When I bring my dogs over in the summer for our annual holiday they can continue to have a run on Ryde beach and St Helens. Doggy + People power does work. Continue to be vigilant though, as I dont think this is the last battle to be fought by the dog owners of the IOW.

Thank you sphinx, the whole point of having a Town Council and a County council is to have decisions taken suitable for the local area rather than by a remote Authority with no knowledge of the situation at local level. But in this situation with the Blue Flag Awards we are faced with an unelected body giving a mandate to our elected representative to comply with their criteria, whatever that happens to be, discounting the views of the very people they are supposed to represent. Where is the evidence that the Blue Flag award actually brings any benefit, financial or otherwise?

Its an award that the councils have to pay to apply for, when they win it they have to fly the emblem of this organisation advertising it as a high achievement, they advertise the Award further in all tourist information and they endorse it to all. What a stroke of genius as a business model. I just wish I had thought of it first.

The UK is the only country in the world that sets the Blue Flag criteria to require dogs to be banned, they are bringing the Worldwide reputation of this award into disrepute to  satisft their Anti-Dog agenda, yet we are supposedly a nation of animal lovers. I have tried, on several occasions, to contact the International representatives of the Blue Flag organisation and those attempts have been totally ignored. I consider this to be  arrogant contempt and I consider them to deserve the Anti-Dog reputation they are gaining. Wake up people this award is meaningless and our representatives striving for it, as if it were the Holy Grail, is a waste of resources.

Well done to all of us for making our voices heard. A huge thank you to the webmaster and friends for making the Wightdogs Forum available to us all - people power rules!! There are some reasonably minded people out there prepared to listen to those who have elected them or , in the case of council employees, the people who pay them.

It appears that the Anti-Dog lobby are exasperated by our victory, as I have just had to delete the account of a troll who registered with the site solely to harass and to post his venomous Anti-Dog agenda on our forums.