Do you have a question for a ward councillor?
As your local newspaper, Randburg Sun provides a platform for residents to learn about, understand and follow local government. As an extension of that, a weekly column called, Councillor’s Corner will begin to appear in your newspaper.
Councillor’s Corner is a platform for you, our readers, to voice your concerns or questions so that ward councillors can respond to them. Different, willing ward councillors will respond to a question every week.
Steve Ward from Johannesburg asks:
I have two neighbours with noisy dogs. One lets their dogs bark all the time, day and night. The other has a dog that barks near our bedroom and wakes us at least once every night. Attempts to resolve this by contacting Metro police have proved difficult, as I get shunted from pillar to post.
How does one address this blatant disregard for municipal bylaws?
Ward 117 councillor, Tim Truluck, answers:
Barking dogs are notoriously difficult to resolve.
The first step is to always speak to your neighbour. Make sure that you can identify the offending dog. Often it is another dog on another property that is barking. Take some evidence with you like pictures, videos, recordings and diary entries of the disturbance.
If this doesn’t work, then your ward councillor can escalate to the Environmental Health Inspector. The resident should provide the contact details of the neighbour. Usually, they will go out and investigate the complaint and speak to the neighbour about the dog.
If the problem continues, they may return to the property and issue a fine.
After that, if the problem persists, the neighbour will have to probably use a legal route via the provincial or national laws.
Details: Email your burning question to: aimeed@caxton.co.za and let’s get the ball rolling.
