A Dog Exercise Area (DEA) is an area designated by WCC where dogs can be run off-leash. One of these areas is in Cummings Park, below the Ngaio village shops. It is popular with those exercising dogs, although some other residents have wanted the DEA closed because they believe the area could be better used for other purposes.
Our Association and WCC have recently completed consultation with our community about the future of the DEA. There were 504 valid responses to the WCC survey, and the table below summarises the results of the survey. It shows that 81% of all users wanted to keep the Dog Exercise Area, with 12% wanting it closed.
The current dog exercise area at Cummings park should be kept |
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| Cummings Park users who exercise dogs there | Cummings Park users who don’t exercise dogs there | All users | ||||||||
| Ngaio Residents | Others | Ngaio Residents | Others | |||||||
| Agree | 133 | 97% | 69 | 99% | 53 | 50% | 27 | 79% | 282 | 81% |
| Neutral | 1 | 1% | 0 | 0% | 21 | 20% | 0 | 0% | 23 | 7% |
| Disagree | 3 | 2% | 1 | 1% | 31 | 29% | 6 | 18% | 40 | 12% |
| Don’t know | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | 1 | 1% | 1 | 3% | 2 | 1% |
| 137 | 100% | 70 | 100% | 106 | 100% | 34 | 100% | 347 | 100% | |
Of those who used Cummings Park to exercise dogs, 97% of Ngaio residents and 99% of visitors from other areas wanted the DEA to be kept.Of those who used Cummings Park but did not exercise dogs there, 50% of the Ngaio residents and 79% of visitors from other areas wanted the Dog Exercise Area to remain.
Given the very strong support for keeping the DEA, our Association has decided it will not be consulting further with the community about whether or not it should be kept or closed. Instead we look forward to working with residents to develop a plan or vision for Cummings Park, including the DEA, to improve the Park for all users. We will be doing this early in 2019, and will be inviting all interested residents to participate.
Full results from the survey are available in these attachments:
- All data summarised
- Comments on improvements
- Comments from Agree/disagree questions
- Verbatim comments – all parks
This post has been abbreviated from an article in our latest newsletter. To receive the newsletters as they are distributed, please join the association – this can be done on line under the Membership menu tab of this site.