Claim council more concerned with dead cats than children

DORSET Council has been accused of caring more for dead cats than children.

Dorset Council has been accused of caring more for dead cats than children.

Ferndown North councillor Cathy Lugg launched an attack on the Lib Dem administration for allowing a motion to persuade the Government to change cat death legislation – while declining a debate on a decision to scrap a lollipop patrol in Church Road outside Ferndown Middle School.

The Council chair, Cllr Stella Jones, said that to have the debate the authority would have needed a 5,000 signature public petition – the Ferndown petition achieving 1,1500.

Wareham councillor Ryan Holloway asked the council at its July meeting to press the Government to change legislation to force drivers to report accidents when they run over a cat.

Earlier in the evening a debate on the Ferndown crossing decision was declined, although several questions were put on the issue, the council saying it would keep to its decision to remove the school crossing patrol now that a zebra crossing was in place, a standard council policy.

Ferndown Conservative councillor Cathy Lugg told the meeting that while she had sympathy with cat owners whose pets were killed it was not a matter Dorset Council had any jurisdiction over.

“Earlier this evening a petition with over a thousand signatures was handed in from members of the public on a road safety issue involving children, which is a Dorset Council responsibility – it didn’t meet the threshold for debate by council and the chair refused her discretion to allow it, yet here we are discussion a motion about death of cats on roads because it has the required number of councillors. How does this look to member of the public?

“Does this administration really want our residents to feel that pets dying on the road is more worthy of discussion than children, potentially dying in the same manner. Central Government will think you’ve got nothing better to do. I won’t be supporting.”

Portland Labour councillor Paul Kimber said that it would be a sad day not to allow the motion over cat deaths just because because it was not in the council’s remit. He said the council was right to  raise any issue of concern to residents, if there was backing for it.

The vote to press for a change in the Road Traffic Act to enforce the reporting of accidents involving cats was approved  on a 46-10 vote, 13 councillors abstaining.

The motion had been instigated by Cllr Ryan Holloway who told the July Dorset Council meeting that his family ginger cat, Pumpkin, has been killed by a driver who ran him over and then left the scene.

The Wareham Lib Dem councillor said another driver stopped and took the injured cat the emergency vets’, but it was too late.

He said that while the Road Traffic Act put an onus on drivers to report accidents involving other animals, cats were excluded, although most are now chipped and, therefore, easy to identify.

He said the Government is not considering updating the Act because it claims it would be difficult to enforce.

Sherborne Rural councillor Robin Legg (Lib Dem) supported the move saying that his family also lost a cat four years ago.

He and his wife were alerted by a post on social media after an evening out that a cat fitting the description of theirs had been run over and taken to the vets’ resulting in a sleepless night for the family before the surgery opened the following morning.

“We need to get home to people that a dead cat on the road isn’t just a bit of roadkill, it’s a personality … I hope our MPs in Dorset take up this cause as well, there are a lot of people who have felines in their lives and I am sure they would appreciate it,” said councillor Legg.