At a recent meeting of the Scrutiny Board (Central and Corporate), Councillor John Procter said that the council has no policy of non-enforcement of the byelaws, but that when council staff are faced with infringements of the byelaws, they carry out on the spot risk assessments to enable them to decide whether or not to intervene. Councillor Procter added that once the designated barbeque area is in place, his department will be “ruthless on the rest of the Moor” and “shall deploy substantial additional resources to enforce no fires.”

Councillor John Bale was present at the meeting, and has expressed the following views on Councillor Procter’s statement, and on the need to enforce the byelaws :

I’m re-assured by Councillor Procter’s argument. Once the new policy is in place there has to be zero tolerance. Law enforcers always have to exercise discretion, and a rapid risk assessment (e.g. might violence ensue if I try to impose a fine now?) is a necessary part of exercising discretion. But once you start to exercise discretion, if you exercise it in one direction only, you’re back with anarchy.

Our laws and byelaws exist to protect citizens. It would be ludicrous not to enforce the byelaws. The problem is one of perception on the part of residents. Maybe risk assessment means that staff aren’t enforcing. Might it be the case that ParksWatch aren’t taking enforcement measures as they think it’s inflammatory and that the risks are greater with enforcement.

ParksWatch and byelaws are not to oppress but to protect people from nuisance and danger, and the environment. I’m worried that because of the difficulty of dealing with lit barbeques, the reality is that the byelaws are not being enforced. There may be a de facto policy of limited enforcement. If that policy exists, then the law is an ass, as it doesn’t provide the security to the public that the byelaws are meant to provide them with.

The difficulty is how to enforce the byelaws without the cure being worse than the disease. But this doesn’t help the residents affected by the problem. This is similar to the demise of bus conductors. We’ve given up on continuous supervision in the public realm. If people can light barbeques and no one can do anything about it, that’s a problem. From the public’s point of view, it amounts to non-enforcement.