Opposition challenges Sefton Council’s changing explanation for aviary closure

Residents can be forgiven for being slightly confused when a budget saving, smuggled through when the Council Tax was set becomes suddenly a new policy on animal welfare. The lack of prior discussion, consultation and debate by Sefton Council may not though be the most surprising thing. What will surprise residents is the apparent ability of the Council to contradict itself.

Cllr. Marion Atkinson, the Labour Council leader, has sought desperately to portray the closure of the popular Botanic Gardens Aviary as exclusively about animal welfare/ So she told the Council a its last full meeting when Liberal Democrats and other opposition councillors urged a rethink. 

It was she said  “all about the welfare of the birds " and described their conditions in the Aviary in grim terms. Yet only a couple of years ago in a Council press release her deputy, Cllr.Ian Moncur, was drawing attention to new investment in the Aviary so  "ensuring that the birds and animals are kept safe and well “. 

 Following the public uproar about the closure, the Council has doubled down and in a press release spoken of the birds being attacked by rats.   

“ Marion and Ian can’t both be right ”, says opposition leader, Liberal Democrat , John Pugh, ‘ The Council can’t claim to have kept the birds 'safe and well' and vulnerable to rat attacks at the same time. 

The sad truth is that this is a council that is winging it - making up policy as it goes along to suit whatever fix it is in. I don’t know about the parrots but Ian looks pretty happy in the Aviary

There is a legitimate, ongoing and complex debate about how we interact with animal kind, and if the Council wants to have that debate, it needs to take place in a considered, informed, unprejudiced and intelligent fashion. It could easily lead to the conclusion that Sefton needs to spend more on the animals they keep.The suspicion is though that the budgetary saving came first -which is why the Council struggles to get its story straight.

 In any case a Council that is currently borrowing £53M to help replace its Theatre and Events Centre surely has the capacity to ensure that its modest facilities meet in a forward looking way the most exacting animal welfare standards and so enable our children and grandchildren to continue to positively interact with other species.”