Protest against the dog beach ban in Hastings Old Town, East Sussex, on April 20 2024

In this video, event organiser Anne Pottle explains more.

Transcript

00:00 [Background noise]

00:07 Hi, my name's Anne Pottle and today we're on the Stade in Hastings to protest about the beach ban.

00:13 We don't believe that the ban is right for various reasons.

00:17 One, we believe the restrictions are against the responsible dog owners

00:22 and we can't see any valid reasonable justification to expand the existing

00:27 or the old PSPO order over to the other beaches.

00:31 Secondly, they haven't consulted the local residents and the traders in the old town.

00:40 So some of them, the first time they knew about this was when we went and asked them to sign our petition.

00:45 And the issue is that it will in fact trade.

00:49 I go on holiday with my dog and the first thing I do is look to see whether something's dog friendly

00:54 or if I can take my dog to the beach.

00:56 Now that we've got these restrictions, it's going to impact tourism

00:59 and impact the people in the old town, the businesses in the old town

01:03 and that wasn't considered as part of this process.

01:06 The other final point is that 72% of people that did sign the consultation were opposed to the dog ban

01:13 and this has been completely ignored.

01:15 And so some of it is about the council's process and the way in which they do consultations.

01:20 Good morning.