Who has priority in public spaces – dogs or children? Where I live, we’re about to find out | Oliver Keens

My children have always been brave and fearless. They wouldn’t think twice about climbing the tallest tree in any park. The only problem is, they’ll stay up there indefinitely if even a shih tzu starts sniffling at the base. The fact that my kids are afraid of the many dogs we encounter when we play outside is a minor pain. But it raises interesting questions about who has priority in public space – a dog or a child?

This debate suddenly escalated in Tower Hamlets, East Londonwhere we live. A local council consultation on stricter controls on dog owners has sparked a visible surge in pro-dog activism over the past few weeks.

The consultation – which closed this month and is now being reviewed – asked whether a public spaces protection order (PSPO) should be implemented to stop dog-related anti-social behaviour. C the consultation’s own wordsit stems from “a recent spate of high-profile incidents involving out-of-control nuisance dogs and their owners”. Council data shows that 108 dog attack offenses were committed in 2023-24, almost double the number in 2019-20. Under the PSPO, owners will have to keep their dogs on leads in all public places, there will be tougher penalties for fouling and dogs will be banned from indoor play parks and sports areas – in other words, places intended for children.

Tower Hamlets Council is run by popular Muslim mayor Lutfur Rahman and his Aspire party. Much of the opposition to PSPO you hear on the streets sounds a lot like dog whistling. A close friend who is a dog walker said they had heard the council was proposing an order to keep dog poo away from Whitechapel Mosque. Several people I’ve spoken to at various playgrounds have gone straight for the idea that “Muslims don’t like dogs”. After right-wing outlets picked up the story (“Dog Walkers Go to War,” reported Daily Mail thunder), Rachel Johnson named the plans “fatwa” – a word not often used in the context of local government.

Yet all of this predictable culture war shamelessly ignores the fact that far too many innocent people are attacked, injured and killed by other people’s pets. The police reported a 21% increase in dog attacks in England and Wales in 2023, with attacks in Devon and Cornwall increasing by 51%. American bullies XL proved so deadly that even Sunak’s slow legislative government they banned them. Perhaps most irritating of all, the NHS 2022-23 figures of hospital admissions following dog attacks show that the most likely victims are children under the age of four.

Dog activists tend to rally around the folksy and avoidant mantra: “There is no such thing as a bad dog, only a bad owner.” A spokesman for one of the major campaigns in Tower Hamlets, East London’s dog community, even suggested children from “cultures that may have an element of fear of dogs” should be given free schooling on “how to behave” around them. Still, fear of dogs is a perfectly legitimate feeling for a child. And at the worst possible extremes, no owner can stop a good dog from suddenly acting out of character, perhaps due to a health complaint or a little intrusion from a child.

a few days ago an investigation Coventry Coroner’s Court heard how seven-month-old baby Elle Doherty died after being attacked by her family’s dog. The “sudden and unexpected” attack happened in less than a second – enough to cause skull fractures and fatal cardiac arrest. There was no suggestion during the investigation that the family were anything but responsible dog owners.

We know more children will die from dog attacks in 2025, but we’re not exactly pushing for a solution. Instead of neighborhoods campaigning for children to gain a rare sense of priority and creating dog-free zones, I live in a neighborhood where the exact opposite is happening: adults are handing out flyers, protesting, and petitioning to allow dogs to dominate in the precious green spaces we have. After a protest and a petition of 2500 people it was delivered at a council meeting last week Tower Hamlets agreed to a proposal for reject or significantly reduce PSPO.

As a society, we don’t know how to talk critically about our pets. But when children become your focus, and as you try to make sense of their world, you wonder why dog ​​owners can’t see the children who tense up and freeze eerily when a dog enters their space—like a sheriff walking into a saloon bar in an old western movie. Politicians have a duty to look after children in this matter. So far, all they seem to be doing is hoping the kids can hide in a tree indefinitely.