We want our residents to be proud of where they live, to feel safe and enjoy clean spaces.
- Consultation launched today on borough-wide Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) that will tackle anti-social behaviour in Harrow
- £100 fine for urinating, defecating, and spitting anywhere in our borough
- Bird feeding and dogs on leads (in parks) are also being considered
Fed up of people making your community dirty and causing a nuisance? Worried about uncontrolled dogs in parks? We’re working to tackle these issues with a new borough-wide Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) and we’d like your views.
We want our residents to be proud of where they live, to feel safe and enjoy clean spaces.
We want to continue to crack down on anti-social behaviour and people who make some of our neighbourhoods a dirty and unpleasant to live and work – and you can help us by supporting changes to our protection order.
A borough wide PSPO will allow us to take immediate enforcement action on anyone caught littering, spitting, urinating or defecating on public land; street drinking; failing to pick up dog mess; and ban driving over footpaths.
It will also help us tackle issues in some of our open spaces. The Council is also considering enforcement action against anyone feeding pigeons or ducks in Pinner Memorial Park, where buildings are being damaged by bird infestations, and those not controlling their dogs in parks.
Have your say in the eight-week consultation ending on 15 May.
Cllr Anjana Patel, Cabinet Member for Environment and Community Safety said:
“I want to see a clean and safe borough for our residents, businesses and visitors. Sadly there is a small minority who simply don’t care and are making some areas in Harrow a dirty and unpleasant place to live and work - and that is totally unacceptable.
“We want to renew and extend our Public Spaces Protection Order so that we can restore pride in our communities and continue to take tough action against those ruining our neighbourhoods or causing a nuisance to others. Please have your say on the consultation.”
The PSPO allows us to act quickly on environmental crimes being committed. Breach of the order is an offence for which an offender can be prosecuted and convicted by the Magistrates Court, but the legislation allows us to issue fines (Fixed Penalty Notices) as an alternative to taking the matter to court.
Not only do PSPOs make it easier for us to take action, but we hope it will also make people think twice before acting anti-socially.
We need to check whether residents and businesses would welcome us tackling these issues – that’s why we’ve designed this consultation, to seek your views and look at implementing the controls the public want.
We also want to tackle some very specific and local issues so we can have a targeted approach to our worst affected areas.