There's not enough rooms at Christmas because DEFRA closed down the inns.
DEFRA’s lack of plans after the closures and lack of foresight to see the inevitable consequences leaves people with the choice between abandoning their pets or abandoning their family at Christmas.
- If you can’t spend time with your family over Christmas because you couldn’t get into a cattery or kennels, remember that DEFRA started the destruction of our industry back in 2019 and has had plenty of time and opportunity to fix their mess.
- DEFRA invented solutions to imaginary problems and for three years allowed local authorities to close businesses for any infraction real, imaginary or insignificant regulation.
- While we can't diagnose all DEFRA employees with some kind of sociopathic paralysis disorder, doing nothing is DEFRA's choice every time.
- First DEFRA imagined that they were paid to invent regulations, then were paid not foresee the consequences and are still being paid not to fix them … while everyone else suffers the consequences.
DEFRA created a shortage of cattery and kennel spaces across the country and gave you the choice to;
- Use an unlicensed cattery or kennels.
- Allow an expensive uninsured stranger to enter your home to act as a cat-sitter or dog walker for 30 minutes in any day.
- Leave your pets outside to fend for themselves.
- Leave them locked in the flat and spend the entire time with your family worrying they might die.
DEFRA’s 2019 DEFRA’s unwarranted and ill-informed interference in our industry caused a third of the country’s boarding capacity to disappear - some were closed by local authorities and some left our profession involuntarily - But all I’ve talked to cite the reputational harm caused by the unworkable rating system, the disgraceful conduct of licensing officers during inspections and the endless bullshit from local authorities.
If this has happened only once then it’s just an anomaly - If it’s happening in every corner of the country then there’s a problem with the regulations and DEFRA.
Whenever the stories hit the papers local authorities just spin their lies to the journalists and without checking the story the journalists just print the excuses as fact:
- Local authorities inevitably blame the closure of catteries and kennels on businesses not reading the regulations or not being able to meet the requirements of the regulations.
- When every local authority in the country knows that DEFRA is the problem.
- When every local authority knows that they’ve had a massive increase in complaints from our sector since 2019.
- When every local authority knows that the regulations are so badly written that there’s no point in covering up the misinterpretation of the regulations by licensing officers and no point pretending that DEFRA isn’t the problem.