COUNCIL chiefs have been urged to 'fast-track' a fresh attempt at tackling Worcester's seagulls - before it is too late.

Worcester City Council's scrutiny committee has decided to ask the Labour leadership to press on with proposals to spend more money on the gulls.

The move means a detailed scrutiny 'review' aimed at examining what can be done with £15,000 of taxpayers' cash will not go ahead.

Members of the scrutiny committee said they were concerned about the issue becoming an endless talking shop, especially with the warmer spring weather only weeks away.

Conservative Councillor Andy Roberts, a former cabinet member for the environment, says the public want them to "just get on with it" instead of discussing it for weeks on end.

Speaking during a scrutiny committee meeting, he said: "In my view there's been a report done, surely we should just get on with it, rather than go through the same thing over and over again."

Councillor Marc Bayliss, the scrutiny committee's chairman, said: "It's an important issue, and the danger is if we say 'no', the cabinet will say 'you stopped it'.

"We should politely send the cabinet the previous report and say 'look at that, and make a decision'.

"We need to get on and tackle these seagulls before the end of the nesting season."

The committee decided to ask the Labour leadership to make a decision without any further meetings to debate it.

The Labour cabinet had asked the committee to investigate the issue in more detail, and draw up a series of recommendations for how to best spend the cash.

Last month the council's leadership cited concerns the proposed £15,000 may not be enough, and asked the committee to come up with a firm set of ideas.

Seagulls population in Worcester 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 it does not include residential areas, despite years of concern about the birds being pushed out to other areas of the city like Warndon by Blackpole Retail Park's KFC.

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.

Yesterday we revealed how Councillor Chris Mitchell, a former city council deputy leader, had suggested bosses consider a possible cull.