Council’s Bronze Award For Animal Activity Licensing

Published on: 14 Oct, 2021
Updated on: 14 Oct, 2021

Guildford Borough Council (GBC) has been awarded a Bronze Animal Activity Licensing Award from the RSPCA for the third year running.

The RSPCA’s PawPrint Awards celebrates local authorities, housing providers and emergency services who have gone above and beyond caring for animals in their communities.

The award recognises excellent practises in animal welfare including stray dog services, contingency planning, housing policy, animal activity licensing and kennelled dog welfare.

Guildford Borough Council’s lead for the environment, James Steel (Lib Dem, Westborough), said: “Congratulations to our team for this achievement, especially as the past 18 months have posed challenges and continue to do so for everyone working on the front line of animal welfare. We are one of few councils that have an animal welfare policy.

“We work closely with external agencies to provide the best animal care and support we can. One of those services is Dogbusters, who collect stray dogs and reunited them with their owners. This fantastic service is now widely recognised by our residents. It operates 24/7 including bank holidays.”

The RSPCA’s senior parliamentary adviser, Rachel Williams, said: “We’re absolutely delighted that GBC has picked up bronze recognition in the PawPrints Animal Activity Licensing category.

“GBC’s award demonstrates the lengths they go to in ensuring animal welfare is a central factor in their licensing process. This includes timely inspections, dealing with complaints and making contacts with local experts, like vets, behaviourists and animal welfare specialists.”

A spokesperfor the council added: “Residents play a big part in supporting out team effort, but it is also important that as an animal owner, they are aware of animal activities that need to be licensed.”

Some animal activities need to be licensed including: boarding dogs in your home, providing day-care for dogs, boarding dogs in kennels, boarding cats, selling animals as pets, breeding dogs, hiring out horses, keeping a zoo, keeping a dangerous Wild Animal (defined by a Schedule in the Act), keeping, or training animals for exhibition.

Find out what we can do about lost, stray, dangerous and noisy dogs – https://www.guildford.gov.uk/dogwarden