The Leader of Gloucester City Council has warned of an 'explosion' in the seagull problem that has blighted the city for years.

In recent years the council has been permitted to remove hundreds of eggs and nests, but it is no longer permitted to do so under wildlife protection regulations.

City council Leader Cllr Richard Cook fears it will lead to more mess and more expense to the council and businesses in clean-up costs.

Speaking exclusively to Punchline, Cllr Cook said: "Over several years we were removing something between 1,500 and 3,000 eggs per annum which we are no longer allowed to do.We did manage to get that number down in the last two years the general licence was issued. We removed something like 200 in one year and just over 100 in the final year so we were actually beginning to get the gulls under control.

"Defra authorised Natural England to issue the general licence and in previous years the two gulls we have in Gloucester were on the general licence and we were allowed to intervene in terms of dealing with the eggs and breaking up the nests but without that general licence all wildlife is protected and that includes gulls.

"They have refused to put them on on the basis that they say the population is declining.which is absolute nonsense. They might be declining on the coast because there's lots of predators on the coast like foxes and other things but in the city I can't imagine any foxes climbing up the buildings to predate on them.

"The only thing that keeps those numbers under control was humans.and now we're not allowed to do that. Last year we were able to do nothing, so that might have been 500 birds that fledged and matured and in two years' time they will come back into the city and they will mate and have 500 more eggs and it will gradually cause that population to explode.

"The mess is terrible because if it doesn't rain we have to wash those streets and washing the streets is time-consuming and expensive.so we just hope for rain to make sure it washes away the mess. If we don't get rain it costs us a considerable amount to clean it all up."

Cllr Cook added: "In the last five years when we were allowed to do something we spent £108,000 just on gull prevention. Of course we've saved that now because we can't spend anything.but we are probably going to have to spend a lot more money washing the streets and washing windows. "The businesses are going to have to spend a lot more money cleaning the cladding and washing their windows and all those car display places may have to wash their cars twice a day sometimes just to get the mess off."

Cllr Cook said he had spoken to three ministers about the issue in the past nine months and got nowhere.

"The last time I spoke was to Lord Benyon courtesy of Richard Graham and Lord Benyon said to Natural England 'Help Gloucester' - those were his words.

"I ended up having a meeting with them and they said we will work out something over the next year to give you an organisational licence. I asked four times what does that allow us to do and got no answer. so I'm not confident that's going to give us any room to do anything next year. All the time we spend kicking our heels and not dealing with the gulls they are happily breeding, flying off and coming back here to breed."

Cllr Cook said that closing the tip had only led the gulls to look for more food sources. "They will fly up to 40 miles to feed so there are plenty of places to go - there's a river,a canal, there's tips nearby."

Punchline editor Mark Owen has long been outspoken about the seagull situation in Gloucester. He said: "When I was chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses I said there should be a cull. Seagulls are vermin."

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