Greyhound Racing NSW has suffered a significant setback after the rejection of its proposal for a 400-dog rehoming centre in NSW’s Hunter Valley.
The $30m centre, submitted by GRNSW as an “animal boarding and training facility”, was rejected unanimously by the Regional Planning Panel after strong local opposition.
The Panel said the proposal for Martindale was unsuitable due to a range of negative impacts, and had also heard concerns about animal welfare.
“GRNSW’s marketing team might have named it a farmstay, but, in reality, the facility would have been a dumping ground for ex-racing greyhounds.”
A spokesperson for the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds welcomed the move and said the answer to the rehoming crisis wasn’t industry-run facilities.
“GRNSW’s marketing team might have named it a farmstay, but, in reality, the facility would have been a dumping ground for ex-racing greyhounds,” she said.
“The rehoming crisis can’t be solved by simply warehousing hundreds of dogs. The racing industry, with its lack of transparency and culture of secrecy, can’t be trusted to run such a complex. Retired greyhounds need a lot of care and attention and the industry has a history of animal abuse more than animal welfare,” she said.
“The racing industry is breeding six times as many greyhounds as can be rehomed. A breeding cap is essential but the industry will always put profits before animal welfare.”
One of the reasons for rejecting the facility was the vulnerability of the area to flooding and being cut off. CPG has heard of trainers who abandoned their dogs during the major floods that hit NSW in 2022.
An FY20/21 update to CPG's white paper on greyhound rehoming finds that the racing industry is still failing miserably to rehome greyhounds.
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