News / parks
Council to reduce park licence fees for dog walkers after outcry
Professional dog walkers will pay less than other groups in an update on upcoming licence fees for Bristol parks.
The fees are due to be rolled out early next year in parks across the city, although the exact level businesses will be charged has not yet been revealed.
However after pressure from dog walkers, Bristol City Council has agreed to reduce fees for their licences, compared to other businesses such as personal trainers holding bootcamp classes.
These were initially proposed at £450 per business in one park.
One group will pay less than others in update on upcoming licence fees for Bristol parks – photo: Rob Browne
The reduced fees were revealed by Liberal Democrat councillor for Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze Stephen Williams, chair of the public health and communities policy committee, during a committee meeting on Friday.
This came after warnings that £450 would be unaffordable for some dog walkers.
Rebecca Wilson, one affected dog walker, said: “There isn’t anywhere like £450 profit in an average, good, responsible dog walker’s business per year. It’s a hand to mouth business model.
“With fees anywhere above £100, this cost will be passed directly to your constituents using invaluable dog walking services.
“Dog walkers will be forced to walk larger groups of dogs at any one time, increasing the numbers of dogs in parks at any one time, impacting other park users.
“While we’re all very supportive of dog walker licensing, the current proposed fee is unaffordable.”
She added that the £450 fee would be hard to pay for part-time dog walkers.
The Downs will have different fees for licences – photo: Betty Woolerton
The primary aim for the licences, according to Williams, is to monitor what commercial activities are taking place in parks and check they have qualifications and insurance — rather than making money.
After a backlash earlier in 2025, the proposals were paused while council staff revisited them.
Williams said: “When we published the original, quite simple scheme, back in the summer, it quickly became apparent that there were issues with it.
“I withdrew it at that point and said we would reconsider, both for personal trainers and commercial dog walkers. We have internally redesigned the scheme to a point where I’m more or less happy with it.
“But conversations are still taking place among colleagues and I hope we will be able to publish something soon.
“One thing we have decided is that we’ll have a separate bespoke scheme for commercial dog walkers, because we recognise the economics in that area are quite different to what’s going on in large bootcamps.
“We tried to come up with a very simple scheme and often when you do this, there are anomalies that people draw our attention to.
“So we listened, withdrew that, and are coming back with something which I hope will address a lot of the concerns.
“The fees for the licences are calibrated at a lower level than for large commercial bootcamp companies.”
Alex Seabrook is a local democracy reporter for Bristol
Main photo: Ellie Pipe
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