How to: Horse / Animal Removal

Service in Wrexham - including Bangor, Colwyn Bay, Denbigh, Holyhead, Snowdonia.

Horse / Animal Removal

The Control of Horses (Wales) Act is the legal framework for enforcement across Wales.

The primary policy objective in relation to this Act is to work towards establishing a fly grazing free Wales. The Act provides all local authorities in Wales with consistent legal powers to seize, impound, sell, re-home, return, dispose of and destroy horses by humane means after certain notifications and time limits, when the horses are found causing nuisance by fly grazing, straying or have been abandoned in a local authority area.

The Problem

Fly-grazing, straying, or abandoned horses present numerous issues for landowners, the public and the horses themselves. For example:

• Horses may present a risk to public safety, particularly when left on public or private land, such as parks or residential property.
• Horses can negatively impact the land, particularly where grazing is already poor, and horses may damage fencing while trying to access better grazing.
• The cost of dealing with unlawfully grazed horses can be substantial, often running into many thousands of pounds.

The Control of Horses (Wales) Act

This Act makes provision for local authorities in Wales to seize, impound and dispose of horses which:

• are in public places without lawful authority, or
• are on other land without the consent of the occupier of the land.

A local authority may seize and impound a horse which is on any highway, or in any other public place, in the local authority’s area if the local authority has reasonable grounds for believing that the horse is there without lawful authority.

A local authority may seize and impound a horse which is on any other land in the local authority’s area if the local authority has reasonable grounds for believing:

• in the case of land of which the local authority is the occupier, that the horse is there without the local authority's consent, or
• in the case of other land in the local authority's area, that the horse is there without the consent of the occupier of the land and that the occupier consents to the local authority seizing and impounding it.

The Solution

If you live in Wales and find horses left on your land, contact the Local Authority as they have the power to detain the horse(s), but you do not.

The Control of Horses (Wales) Act 2014 gives Shared Regulatory Services the powers to seize and impound horses and ponies which are found fly grazing, straying or abandoned.

The Local Authority may charge the landowner for any costs incurred in removing horses from private land.

Horse / Animal Removal in Wales

Wrexham & North Wales  Aberystwyth & Mid Wales  Swansea & South West Wales  Cardiff & West Valleys  Newport & East Valleys