A NEW war is being declared on seagulls in Worcester - with council chiefs pledging a fresh crackdown on the pests.

The city's Labour leadership is going to have talks this week about new measures to ease the gulls problem after anecdotal evidence the avian scavengers are out in force.

We can reveal:

- Labour Councillor Jabba Riaz, the senior politician tasked with looking after the environment, says he's had a rush of people email him within the last month complaining about the gulls

- 181 breeding gull pairs were spotted in the city at the last count, despite the measures to try and put them off

- The hunt for fresh solutions could include changes to planning policy so developers ensure new buildings are less attractive to the pests

- People in New Street claim they can't hang up their washing due to the all-too regular seagull mess.

The council works with pest control experts Red Kite, which has used a tactic of leaving fake eggs on roofs in recent years to discourage the birds from leaving real ones.

Population counts do point to a steady decline in recent years, with the nesting pair tally of 181 at the end of the last breeding season down from 217 in 2013 and 296 in 2011.

But Councillor Riaz, who became cabinet member for clean, green and leisure services in May, told the Worcester News he's been contacted by a lot of people about seagulls in recent weeks.

"There is definitely a problem there and something needs to be done, I'm planning to talk to my cabinet colleagues about it," he said.

"Over the last month I've had a lot of people contact me, I've had a New Street resident say they can't put the washing out.

"Nashes Passage, Phoenix Court, Albion Mill by the new Diglis development, all of those areas have been flagged up to me as hotspots by the public.

"We need a multi approach, it could include looking at the agreement with Red Kite to see what can be done, another idea could be looking at planning applications to ensure developers take account of the fact seagulls may want to nest on their developments.

"Businesses who don't clear up their mess need to be held to account, and crucially the only reason gulls are really here is the food sources and people who drop it.

"I'll be talking about it with my cabinet colleagues to see what we can do."

Back in April Worcester made national headlines after a vicious seagull swooped on a young city woman, 22-year-old Jessica Charles and attacked her hand, drawing blood while stealing a biscuit.

Then in July pensioner Chris Knight, 70, told of a claw-hanging gull swooping at her twice in Angel Place, leaving her terrified.

A Worcester News poll has found 70 per cent of readers want more action to tackle them.