Community & Business
28 March, 2025
Investigation into dog park
DOG owners who have been for years asking for a fence to separate larger dogs from smaller ones at Atherton’s only off-leash dog park may finally get some satisfaction.
Cr Kevin Cardew raised the matter at Tablelands Regional Council’s latest meeting, saying people had been asking for a fence to separate different-sized dogs at the park for three years.
“A lot of the elderly take their little dogs there and they are being knocked over by the big dogs,” he said.
A petition had been tabled and a decision made to put a chain-link fence across the park, but the council then hit a roadblock.
“It was just about right to go, and I believe materials were purchased for this, when officers discovered that the existing dog area is of significance under the heritage provisions attached to the Chinatown area,” Cr Cardew said.
That had forced officers to put the plans on hold and look into what permits they would require to do the works.
Cr Cardew also raised the inaction on a resolution passed by council in August last year which ordered an investigation into the feasibility of establishing an off-leash dog park within the park on Solar Crescent/Planet Avenue, Atherton.
“We haven’t heard anything on this since then and the people who use the existing dog park are jumping up and down to say the least and expressing their frustrations to me,” he said.
He said in the meantime, council should erect a temporary fence into the existing off-leash dog park and that could be “easily achieved”.
But Infrastructure Services general manager Mark Vis said it was not that easy.
“As it a heritage-listed site, even placing posts into the ground, we have to do archaeological digging to see if there’s anything of significance there. If we haven’t got clearance, we can’t undertake those works,” he said.
“I will have to go back and see where we are at with that.”
The council agreed that the chief executive officer investigate if there were any impediments to installing a temporary fence at the existing dog park and investigate an alternative off-leash dog park in Atherton.
