Park duck feeding fine withdrawn

[4me2]

Park duck feeding fine withdrawn


Vanessa Kelly said she would have taken the matter to court

A mother who was fined for feeding the ducks with her young son in the park will not now have to pay the charge. Vanessa Kelly was in Smethwick Hall Park, in Smethwick, West Midlands, when she was approached by a warden and given a £75 on-the-spot littering fine.
The warden then told Ms Kelly her son could continue to feed the ducks as he was too young to be fined.
Sandwell Council, which at first defended the action, said it was now taking a "commonsense" approach.
When details of the fine, issued on 10 November, emerged the authority defended the action on the basis that Ms Kelly was not in a designated feeding area.

I won't be going back to that park again


Vanessa Kelly

Ms Kelly said she was delighted at the change of heart.
The council's deputy leader, Darren Cooper, said the council would not pursue payment while signs were being improved at the park.
"The new signs will make it abundantly clear that feeding of waterfowl is not allowed at all in this park and that anyone observed feeding the geese and any other birds will receive a fixed penalty notice," he said.
Ms Kelly said she would have gone to court if the council had pursued the fine.
"I won't be going back to that park again," she added.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/w...ds/8366850.stm

[Mystical_2K]

cant believe someones job is to fine people for feeding the ducks in the wrong place - fuck me the world is strange at times (most times to be honest)

[Danger Mouse]

cant believe someones job is to fine people for feeding the ducks in the wrong place

fine the people who are feeding them while with a small child, they wanna catch the fuckers who shoot them with air rifles n cross bows, priorities are shite, end of.

[Subby]

Community wardens are the bastard children you get when you breed a parking warden with a womble and give it a uniform.

If i get fined for something, I want to know i've earned it. If I curl off a log in the middle of a play ground then fine is fair enough, but for feeding some ducks at a park its just taking the piss.

[furrry]

yeah what a joke. try telling the ducks they need to go to designated feeding area.

should be ashamed of themselves telling people were they can feed the ducks

i heard this on radio today, i sure they also meantioned a guy got a £50 fine for littering in town centre

anfter he tried to put away a £10 note in his back pocked and missed and it fell on ground.

[Speshal]

I can understand not feeding pigeons which are continually being regarded as vermin but surely the whole point of a park (especially one with water) is to be a nature preserve as much as it is anything else. It's not like they were throwing coke cans ffs.

[doughboy]

How exactly would a fixed fine be enforced by a park warden?

For example, if I was feeding ducks and some jobsworth gave me a ticket for 75 quid I'd simply laugh at him and go on my way.

[Eric]

"The new signs will make it abundantly clear that feeding of waterfowl is not allowed at all in this park and that anyone observed feeding the geese and any other birds will receive a fixed penalty notice," he said.

Could you not just claim you were feeding the fish in the pond

[MsDG]

Its a classic case of the media giving half a story. While I agree that fining someone for this offence is a bit daft, the reasons for the rules do actually seem common sense.

What had been happening at the park is due to people feeding the ducks from the path, the ducks had been more or less camping out on the main path, which was turning into a sea of duck shit. Obviously which is not nice for kids and even a slip hazzard... and it was attracting rats into the mix to. There had actually been a lot of public complaints about the path covered in shit, so the council erected signs simply requesting people to use a grassy area to feed the ducks instead.

All of this seems reasonable to me so far, just quite how you would police it reasonably i don't know?

Personally if it was me and I witnessed some silly cow encouraging ducks onto the path to shit everywhere despite clear signage asking her not to do so, I would just give her a realistic demonstration of what it would be like to slip over on duck shit and to be covered head to toe in the stuff!

[Hangman]

What would happen if a warden came to give you a ticket but when he asked for your details you told him to fuck off and walked off?