Petition updateEdinburgh Council to reinstate "No Dogs in Cemeteries" rule that was in place pre-CovidWeekly Update No:3 – 2nd March 2024 - What a Week!
Andy LeesEdinburgh, United Kingdom
2 Mar 2024

Hello everyone, we hope you are having a great weekend.

Welcome to the third of our weekly updates, informing you of what steps we have taken in our campaign this week, and any notable developments.

And what a momentous week it has been!

Firstly, the weekly roundup of figures.

This petition was lunched on 30th January 2024. Which means it has been running for 32 days at the time of writing.

To mark this one-month mark, Paul wrote a personal message to you all. Read it here: https://t.ly/5CeUS

At the time of writing, we have 1084 signatories (yes…we passed the 1000 mark this week!), the petition has been viewed 10,493 times, it has been shared 639 times, and it has had 23 very kind promoters who have contributed £90 to promoting the petition link to a wider audience – we thank all our signatories and promoters from the very bottom of our hearts.

We list some more ways you can help us at the end of this update.

What has been happening over the past seven days?

1: We passed the incredible milestone of 1000 signatures in only 27 days

This was quite remarkable. Never in our wildest dreams did we expect to get so many signatures in so short a time. It clearly demonstrates the strength of feeling around this issue. It gives us valuable ammunition for the fight and sends a clear message to Edinburgh Council that many of its residents are unhappy with the current Cemetery Management Rules concerning dogs in cemeteries.

See our post about this milestone here: https://t.ly/ffGW9

2: The Scottish Parliament have approved our petition – it is now LIVE

Another significant milestone. It is quite a stringent process you need to go through to get one of these approved, and the Scottish Parliament were very supportive of our application, even going as far as suggesting a couple of very helpful edits to the text.

We are much more specific in the statement of this petition:

Pass a law making exercising a dog in a cemetery an offence

Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to pass a law making exercising a dog in a cemetery an offence punishable by an on-the-spot fine for infringement.

See our post about this new Scottish Parliament petition here: https://t.ly/LryJf

Sign the petition here: https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE2087

3: Ongoing contact with Edinburgh Councillors, MSP’s, and MP’s

We continue to engage with Edinburgh Councillors, particularly The Culture & Communities Committee at Edinburgh Council, MSP’s, and MP’s.

To date, we have personally written to:

  • 28 Edinburgh Councillors
  • All 10 members and the Convener of the Culture & Communities Committee at Edinburgh Council
  • 13 MSPs
  • 4 MPs

We continue to get very helpful and supportive replies from all the above on a daily basis, offering very useful help and advice. 

This week, we would particularly like to thank the following for their help and advice:

  • Cllr Scott Arthur (Andy’s Ward)
  • Cllr Ben Parker (Paul’s Ward)
  • Cllr Jason Rust
  • Miles Briggs MSP
  • Cllr Val Walker (Convener of the Culture & Communities Committee at Edinburgh Council)

Our first meeting with Council staff is in the latter half of March, and we are busy preparing for that.

4: Edinburgh Council Culture & Communities Committee – The Six-Month Rule

The Culture & Communities Committee at Edinburgh Council is the committee that oversees and governs the Cemetery Management Rules. They met on Thursday this week, and we watched the entire webcast of this meeting, as it happened.

It was a very useful insight into the work and wide remit of the committee, and it was heartening to see the issue of dogs in cemeteries mentioned at one point, even though it was not formally on the agenda. It is on their radar – hardly surprising, since we have personally written to every member of the committee.

Cllr Val Walker (Convener of the Culture & Communities Committee) wrote to us with a very interesting piece of information around the issue of dog owners using cemeteries as exercise areas:

“We are keen to see this monitored and can then review. There is a “six-month rule” in the Council, and as the decision was taken in December the Committee cannot reconsider until June. The first relevant meeting would be the August one”.

This makes absolute sense, and we are grateful for the clarification.

From the moment the decision was agreed to keep the Cemetery Management Rules as they were at the committee’s meeting on 7th December 2023, no changes were ever going to be considered until six months later. in June 2024 at the earliest, after the Council’s own six-month monitoring period had passed.

This rather puts paid to the counter petitions efforts to take credit for the decision taken by the Culture & Communities Committee on 7th December 2023 (a decision the counter petition had absolutely zero input into) not to change the rules for the “foreseeable future”, and even toying with the idea of “claiming victory” on their three week old petition (a petition which was started 54 days after the Culture & Communities Committee 7th December 2023 decision).

The Cemetery Management Rules were never going to be changed in the foreseeable future, by us or the counter petition, due to Council policy.

We will be meeting with Cllr Walker in the “foreseeable future”.

5: Freedom of Information Requests

We have submitted a further 10 FOI requests, taken our running total of FOI requests submitted to 34.

It is a very interesting process. Sometimes, when you get the results back, not only do they provide useful information, but they spark a further FOI for more information – it is a case of “digging deeper” to get as much relevant information as possible.

We posted our first update during the week, based on the first substantial FOI data to come back. Go and have a read of “The Consequence of No Consequences - FOI Request from Edinburgh Council” here: https://t.ly/Msv5H

6: Misinformation Monday

Lastly, the subject of some more recent updates on the counter petition. We have clearly stated in the past that we have no issue with a counter petition – we expected it, and we welcome it in the interests of democracy.

What we do have an issue with is blatant misinformation, insinuations, and baseless accusations.

We did not expect this.

This Change petition platform only allows you to post one update a day. We would rather use that update to deliver news and developments to you, our supporters, rather than wasting valuable time and effort replying to what comes across as childish misinformation, insinuations and accusations.

However, it is happening, and we will respond when we feel there is a need to. We did this recently in this update: https://t.ly/Xtw7t

Form now on, we will only post a response to any misinformation, insinuations & baseless accusations (from any source) once a week, on a Monday.

We will headline these updates as “Misinformation Monday”.

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As we keep saying, getting Edinburgh Council to revisit the Cemetery Management Rules, or the Scottish Government to consider a new law, is not going to happen overnight.

It will take time (we now know at least six months before Edinburgh Council will consider looking again at their Cemetery Management Rules), hard work, engagement with elected officials, building a strong case, and people power from you good folk.

Nothing is ever set in stone. Rules are there to be challenged, and when deemed appropriate, changed through the democratic processes available to us.

We are committed to the long haul, whether it is six months, one year, two years or longer…and we can only do it with your help.

Thanks again for your support, have a lovely weekend,

Paul & Andy

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