Oriental Bay residents differ on council proposal to allow dogs off-leash on beach

Oriental Bay residents are clashing over Wellington City Council's proposal to allow dogs off their leashes on the beach during off-peak hours in summer.

Off-leash dogs are banned from Oriental Bay Beach in Wellington from 1 November to 30 April, but an effort is under way to allow pooches to roam the shore during summer months.

Wellington City Council has proposed allowing dogs off their leash during off-peak hours in summer: before 10am and after 7pm.

Dog owners at Oriental Bay Beach told RNZ they were are all for it.

"That's before it gets hot and usually before there's a lot of people down here," Deidre O'Connor said.

"They're part of the family and when we come to the beach, we like to bring them with us," Antonia Bettany said.

"If you have a limit in the day, that means that everyone knows when the dogs are there and when they're not," Gemma Haig said.

"There's not many kids here before 10 in the morning, the dogs just love it out here on the beach," John Kliffen said.

They all agree that if these changes are implemented, all dog owners should be held accountable for their pooches.

But IT worker David Scott was not keen.

"I deliberately come down here early as I can to avoid as many dogs as I can, because they pee on my clothes and they pee on my blankets and pee on the beach," Scott said.

Australian couple Christine and Tony Murphy are also against the change because they had seen the problems it had caused around Tarragon Beach in New South Wales.

"Dog owners don't pick up after their dogs and it all washes in the sea, where we swim. That's our recreational area.

"Basically people walk their dogs to the beach and since Covid so many more people acquired dogs and they don't all pick up after their dogs," Christine Murphy said.

Karina Theobald was left shocked after a boxer that was not on a leash ran straight towards her earlier this year.

"I'm a bit afraid personally of dogs," Theobald said.

Since the last review of the Dog Policy in 2016, the number of dog registrations has grown in the capital by 39 percent up to 16,000 dogs.

The proposed changes come after a council survey where 88 percent of those polled wanted to see more focus on making the city canine friendly.

Pukehīnau Lambton ward councillor Nicola Young said children on the beach were more important than dogs.

"In the summer we need to remember that human beings and children are more important than dogs. Council does not have the manpower to monitor. You'd have to be there all the time, you'd have to have several people on the beach monitoring. It's not just biting children, it's also the fact that they're defecating on the beach and that to me is a bigger risk."

Council is also proposing to expand off-leash areas across 10 suburbs in Wellington.

Young wants Mount Victoria included in this.

"What we should do is have most, nearly all of Mount Victoria off the leash, it's well away, it's on the other side of the city to where they're re-wilding kiwi and it's near a very intensively populated part of the city."