Bellerive Beach: A great recreational asset for everyone.

The current proposed changes to the Bellerive dog-walking regulations shouldn’t even be on the radar. Why meddle with a perfectly satisfactory system that has created a sustainable balance between the needs of dogs and their owners and those who wish to pursue other beach-related activities?

We are dog owners who have lived on Bellerive Bluff for over forty years now and have walked the Bluff and beach almost everyday with four generations of dogs over that time. The gradual improvement of the walking tracks, which for the most part used to be dirt tracks forty years ago, around Kangaroo Bay, Victoria and Alexandra Esplanades leading onto Bellerive Beach, not to mention the link over the Second Bluff to Howrah beach, has created one of the best beachfront recreational assets of the greater Hobart region in recent years.

Both the Council and Coast Care Volunteers have ensured that the natural environment of this semi-urban coastline is consistently enhanced The tracks, themselves, now allow for cyclists and have made it easy for families, especially those with young children with prams, small bikes and scooters to walk easily over considerable distances along this lovely coastline, so it makes sense to ensure that dogs are restrained on these pathways.

That said, Bellerive and Howrah Beaches have also traditionally been dog exercise beaches - an acknowledgement, one hopes, that dogs, like their humans(!) need ”off-lead” exercise, albeit under effective control, and that these two beaches have really delivered this opportunity over the past four decades.

In more recent times it has made sense to provide some restrictions to access to the beach for dogs and their owners especially with the development of the playground adjacent to the Bellerive arena, and the present restrictions seemed to have created an equilibrium that is generally cherished by dog owners, loved by the dogs themselves, and certainly has not been invasive to the vast majority of other beach users on these two beaches, especially given the general time separation that occurs between the various individual activities that will occur in any beach environment.

Bellerive beach is a wonderful multi-use asset that should be celebrated for the successful way in which the Council has been able to integrate the needs of its largely urban population in a sensible balance between access and demand. It’s always best to remember the old adage that “if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it”. The current restrictions work, they are now accepted, and one would question why the Council would want to alienate a large population of ratepayers who also happen to be dog owners and dog walkers when there seems to be no sensible reason to impose further restrictions.