Letter: Cattle at Riverside Park Need Managing

Published on: 20 Nov, 2022
Updated on: 19 Nov, 2022

Obstructive cattle at Riverside Park

From: Paul Robinson

In response to: Cattle Can Cause Problems at Nature Reserve

Further to Frank Phillipson’s letter regarding the cattle at Riverside Park, on Friday (November 18) I went for my daily dog walk over the park and came across the cattle laying down on the gravelled pathway that runs down the boardwalk side of the lake thus blocking it for anybody who is afraid of cattle or on a mobility scooter or a wheelchair user.

The only way to get down to the other end of the lake is via the muddy path that runs down the other side of the lake, on the A3 side.

The alternative route is muddy and for some unusable.

If the council is going to persist in having the cattle there all year round, the path on the A3 side also needs to be properly made up like the boardwalk side.

Currently, this path is a muddy track with deep muddy ‘potholes’ that stretch across the full width of the path making it totally unusable for mobility scooters and hand-propelled wheelchairs. In addition, to get to that side of the lake you first have to negotiate a dip in the path at the Spectrum end that is full of water, making that virtually impassable.

The cattle’s movement should be restricted by electric fences as they are at other council-owned sites. This would prevent the cattle from blocking access routes and eliminate the increasing number of cow pats on the pathways. The cow pats, incidentally, are a health hazard for wheelchair users.