A COUNTY Councillor has said he is appalled that Worcester City Council is not taking the problem of gull control seriously.

Councillor Alan Amos, who represents Bedwardine, questioned why more money is not being allocated to help control the gull population when money is being spent on planting trees across the city.

“The last time I raised it at council, the Labour leader just made a joke about it, but being regularly woken up before 4.00am in the morning by screeching gulls, having your washing, windows and car covered in gull mess is no joke,” he said.

“People now cannot use their gardens in the summer.

“Whilst the situation gets worse in the city centre, there is now a huge colony of gulls in Lower Wick and the council has done nothing about it at all, probably because it is a Conservative area.”

Cllr Amos held a site meeting yesterday (August 22) with residents from Lower Wick and officers from the city council and Worcestershire Regulatory Services to discuss solutions to the gull problem.

“There is plenty of money around,” he said.

“Just a few months ago, the Labour-Green council spent an extraordinary £20,000 on trees even though they didn't know how many, nor where they were going!

“So instead of wasting public money like that, put it where it will make a big difference to peoples’ lives.”

Councillor Joy Squires, chair of the environment committee, said: “Worcester News readers are used to Cllr Amos’s sensationalist and sometimes inaccurate statements which, sadly, often get in the way of serious consideration of the issues.

"Alan knows full well that there was cross-party support for increasing the budget for tackling the nuisance caused by gulls by £15,000 this year and that extra measures have been taken to discourage the public from feeding gulls and to expand the egg replacement programme.

"He also knows that in October the city council’s environment committee will be reviewing these measures and looking at what else can and should be done, including in residential areas.

“Cllr Amos did not vote against the tree planting programme, which is an important means of improving air quality in the city centre nor does he seem to have noticed that there is no such things as a Labour-Green council.

"No political party is in charge of the city council under the new committee system.”

At the full council meeting on February 21, Cllr Louis Stephen, Green Party, proposed an amendment to the budget for £20,000 to plant trees around Worcester in a bid to improve air quality around the city centre.

The proposal was backed up by a report released by the Royal College of Physicians asserting that poor air quality causes 40,000 premature deaths in the UK a year and a recent US study that reported tress can help reduce particulate matter, microscopic particles that become trapped in the lungs of people breathing polluted air, by up to 24%.

The amendment received cross-party support including Conservatives Cllr Gareth Jones, Cllr Roger Knight, Cllr Steve Mackay and Cllr James Stanley.

The council currently spends £5,500 annually on gull control, using an outside contractor to carry out an egg replacement programme in the city centre.

This method involves replacing gulls’ eggs with dummy eggs so the bird continues to sit on the nest but does not lay a replacement egg.

It is believed this helps control the population and, over time, reduces the number of breeding pairs in the city.

The council to spend an additional £15,000 this year as well as launching a campaign to raise public awareness of what they can do to discourage gulls.

The council has also worked with city businesses to provide advice on steps they can take, getting access to additional nest locations in order to extend the scope of the egg replacement programme and to arrange a pilot of a scheme to paint roofs red as a deterrent to gulls.

Figures released by Worcester City Council say the number of breeding pairs has fallen from 430 in 2007 when the programme started to 303 in 2016.

A Worcester City Council spokesperson said: “We have invested in gull-proof waste sacks for city centre businesses and are looking at options for gull-proof litter bins on city streets.”

Cllr Amos says the rise in pavement tables outside city centre restaurants has led to leftover food fuelling the gull population in the city centre.

“As the council encourages a café society, there are now dozens more outside eating areas in the city centre with people leaving food on the table for waiting gulls, with some morons even feeding the gulls,” he said.

“Despite this, it is absolutely amazing that the council has no written policy requiring café and restaurant owners to clear away any leftover food immediately given that it is such an obvious cause of the problem.”

He added: "It is about time this Labour-Green council realised there is a dangerous nuisance and health issue that is getting worse by the year and are refusing to provide enough money to do even those things that could make a difference."

Worcester City Council is currently investigating if there is a need for a policy on cafes and restaurants clearing up outside tables.

Cllr Amos has long called for a cull which he sees as the only viable long-term solution.

He is currently pressing the council to seek permission from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to allow it.

He said: “If we don't do it, the problem will only get ever worse - and may well even spread to Labour areas!”