WE DID IT! WE SAVED THE PINES: Help Us Pay the Lawyer Who Helped Us!

We did it. Now we need to pay the barrister whose legal opinion helped us.

CODC reversed itself due to legal advice commissioned by Cromwell Dogs Charitable Trust. Two earlier resolutions to close Sandflat Rd were revoked, with acknowledgement that those decisions were unlawful. The off-leash dog exercise designation is restored and council has agreed to work with us on the hazardous trees rather than close the whole block.

Our decision to seek legal counsel was due to several procedural and legal missteps by the Council. CODC has since acknowledged it erred on four distinct counts:

-Its interpretation of the Health and Safety at Work Act. The dog exercise area is not a place of work ordinarily. It does need to do something about the low-risk trees, but it way overstated the risk, its obligations and the proposed mitigation (a fence) was out of all proportion.

-Its actions in trying to revoke the dog exercise area status by of council resolution. IT did this not once, but three times. TO revoke or amend the Dog Control Policy and Dog Control Bylaw, it needs to go through the special consultative procedure in the LGA 2002.

-Its action in trying to fell the trees and incurring the necessary expenditure when they are not provided for in the LTP or the Annual Plan.

-It arguably under assessed the level of significance of this issue from the start and didn’t carry out the correct level of consultation.

Thank you for backing Cromwell Dog's legal advice.