Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2022

The City is undertaking a review of the Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2016.

About the Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law

The Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law provides additional controls and management relating to cats that are not specified in the Cat Act 2011. It promotes and encourages responsible cat ownership and provides a framework for the control of nuisance cats, cat management facilities, limits on the number of cats permitted to be kept and humane destruction of stray cats, and provides authority to enforce the laws and administer fines.

Background

The Local Government Act 1995 requires local laws to be reviewed at least every eight years. The statutory deadline for review of the Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2016 is June 2024.

At its Ordinary Council Meeting of 23 February 2021, Council noted a local law review schedule, which slated the review of the Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2016 for December 2021. It was later determined to be more appropriate to commence the review in early 2022, following the 2021 Local Government elections.

The City completed its review of the local law and it was presented to Council at its Ordinary Meeting of 26 April 2022. The minutes for the meeting can be found here. At that meeting Council adopted a preliminary draft Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law for public comment.

What changes have been made?

The proposed Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2022 contains a list of 42 natural areas in the City of Bayswater where cats would be prohibited.

There is also a new clause 2.2 "Cats in Other Places" which would require that cats should not be in a public place unless under "effective control" (held by a person who is capable of controlling the cat, securely tethered, secured in a cage, or controlled by any other means to prevent escape).

What happens next?

The submission period has now closed. We received over 500 submissions from the community.

• 72% of respondents were in support of the draft law generally
• 70% supported the effective control clause
• 91% supported the natural areas clause

You can read the full community engagement report to see the detailed response.

Council considered submissions in relation to the proposed Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2022 at its meeting of 23 August 2022. With the strong support from the community, they resolved to go ahead with this local law and the proposed amendments, which included clause 2.2 "Cats in Other Places", an effective control clause. You can read the minutes for this meeting here (Item 10.1.1). The local law was gazetted on 7 October 2022, however the next step is approval at State Government level.

The State Government through the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation (JSCDL) requested that the City removes clause 2.2 "Cats in Other Places" from the local law as they feel this contradicts the State legislation within the Cat Act 2011 in regards to cat containment. The Council agreed to this undertaking at the Council Meeting on 6 December 2022 and then to formally remove clause 2.2 at the Council Meeting on 28 February 2023, which involves amending the Keeping and Control of Cats Local Law 2022.

In addition to removing clause 2.2 the Council also resolved to include an additional proposed cat prohibited area being the "Bayswater Industrial Area". The Amendment Local Law was still required to be advertised and this occurred between 9 March and the 28 April 2023. The Amendment Local law will be considered by Council at the Ordinary Council Meeting on 23 May 2023.