MORE than 100 dog owners and their pets are expected to stage a protest outside Nelson’s town hall tonight over plans to increase stray dog fees.

The angry animal lovers will turn out in force ahead of the full council meeting at 6pm to show their strong opposition to the contro-versial plan which critics fear will lead to the death of many canines.

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A petition to council leader Joe Cooney has also been launched on Change.

org by Pendle Dogs in Need and has gathered some 700 signatures in three days.

Pendle Council's annual income review looked at adding and increasing charges to many of the council’s services to gen-erate more income for the cash-strapped council.

Part of the report sugg-ested increasing the charge for collecting wandering pets and kenneling them from £40 to £100.

Three Lib Dem coun-cillors – Claire Teall, Ann Kerrigan and Ken Hartley – have now ‘called in’ the ruling and asked the executive to think again.

Paula Knowles, who runs Pendle Dogs in Need, said: “They haven’t thought this through at all. Now they’ve called the decision in, they won’t be discussing the matter until October 23 so we have to wait until then to find out what will happen. But it is important we turn out at the full council meeting to show the strength of feeling about this.

“People are outraged by the proposal and we want them to see how many people are against it.

“Kennels are already struggling to cope and this price hike won’t help. It will lead to more dogs being killed because people will not be able to afford to get them back.”

Paula points out dog own-ers are under no legal responsibility to collect their dogs from the pound once they’ve been seized and, she says, many are left in the kennels long after the owners have been notified.

“The way forward is to make dog owners legally responsible for their dogs. Increasing this levy just means that responsible dog owners will suffer. Not those people who mistreat their animals and don’t care.”