SEAGULL culling in Worcester will start early next year after city councillors branded them dangerous 'flying vermin'.

The process will involve oiling the birds' eggs with a paraffin-based liquid that stops them hatching and will be accompanied by a public education campaign on the issue.

There will also be attempts to ensure fast food is securely placed in bins to remove the gulls' food source.

Worcester City councillors this week heard the scheme would cost between £6,000 and £10,000 and would take five years to be effective.

Coun Derek Prodger, cabinet member responsible for keeping the city 'clean, green and safe', said it was the most humane way to deal with the scourge.

There is major concern about the population of seagulls in Worcester, which is possibly getting near to 2,000, he said.

I believe the egg-oiling solution requires funding and is the way forward.

In the past year, the city council missed out on £15,000 in national funding to tackle the problem. Although the council and the Department for Food and Rural Affairs have not yet agreed to it, Coun Prodger said he expected egg oiling to be in place in early 2006. Experts will visit nesting sites and paint the eggs de-fertilising them but it will take around five years for numbers to fall because it does not reduce the current population.

The council will need owners' permission to visit city buildings.

A Worcester News survey found that 82 per cent of residents backed a cull because of the noise, mess and aggression of seagulls, which have even 'dive-bombed' pedestrians.

Peter Dodgson, a businessman featured in the newspaper urging the council to address the problem, welcomed the move.

It's good news. At last the power of the people and the press have prevailed, he said.

Bob Jones, of Wordsworth Avenue, in Barbourne, had a different view.

Going to their eggs leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, he said. I think it's a shame we are killing them.

WHY SEAGULLS ARE ATTRACTED

The food source supplied by the 'night-time economy' - chicken bones are found littered on city roofs as evidence of the gulls' reliance on fast food scraps.

A lack of predators.

The presence of nesting and roofing sites in Worcester.

Street lights, providing 24-hour feeding opportunities.

Comparatively high ambient temperatures.

AND STRANGE BUT TRUE

Postmen have been taken off their rounds in Highbridge, Somerset, because of repeated gull attacks.

In Bournemouth, gulls have been deterred by the council painting roofs bright red - Worcester City Council dismissed the idea as 'impossible' in our historic city

In the CrownGate Shopping Centre, Worcester, firemen were called to remove a gull that was trapped in the roof.