Statement (15/11/24)

The Welsh Government asked for views from ethnic minority groups to understand barriers and obstacles to using parks and green spaces in Wales. A small community group held conversations with their wider community members, submitting comments from the discussions as part of a much wider nationwide conversation.

One of the community members suggested: “Create urban farming (allotments) and dog-free areas in local green spaces”. For example, children’s playgrounds are sometimes dog-free zones. This was not a central part of the conversation or the group’s feedback, it was just one comment of many from this community conversation submission and is not Welsh Government policy.

This single line has been cherrypicked, taken out of context, misrepresented and used as clickbait to drive engagement. The original Daily Mail article, seemingly based on this single line, claimed that dogs have been banned from the Welsh Countryside, which is factually incorrect. The headline has now been changed but remains misleading; no one has suggested dogs, or their owners, are racist or that they should be banned from urban green spaces and especially not from the countryside which wasn’t even mentioned in the conversations.

We would prefer the media and politicians focus on the real issues that UK communities face. Racism remains an issue that causes division and suffering for many in our communities and ultimately it is right that governments and others try and address this. Millions of people across the UK are in fuel poverty and the cost of living crisis remains central to people’s lives. The fossil fuel companies are making billions of pounds whilst millions live in cold damp homes and air pollution kills more than 28,000 in the UK each year.