Gull complaints soar after rule change prevents lethal control

MANY visitors to the seaside this summer will have witnessed a bag of doughnuts or chips being whipped out of an inattentive hand by a hungry gull.

Gull complaints have doubled in five years after a rule change prevented councils removing nests and eggs.

Data shows that complaints for gulls across 84 English councils rose from 544 in 2016 to 956 in 2020 and 1,075 in 2021 – a 98 per cent rise.

Most incidents involved mess and noise complaints, but one in four councils highlighted physical attacks by gulls on people or pets. Yesterday a grandmother from St Peters in Broadstairs, Kent, spoke about how she was left bleeding like “something from a Freddy Krueger film” after a gull attack.

Councils were once able to employ “lethal control” of herring gulls as part of their wider permission to restrict the numbers of problem birds. But in 2019 after campaigning from conservationists, gulls were removed from the general licence and councils required to apply on a case by case basis.

Gulls are now a city creature, with three quarters of the herring gulls nesting in towns and cities.

Declining numbers reflect the loss of their natural coastal habitats, with gulls increasingly moving inland and to cities where there is food and rooftop nesting.

In response to criticism, last year Natural England rolled out trial “organisational” licences with councils in Worcester and Bath and North East Somerset, which were designed to provide more latitude, but both councils said they still had to seek permission almost every time they wanted to act.

Tim Ball, a councillor for Bath and North East Somerset, said in April: “Only in extreme circumstances can you remove eggs now. We’ve had gulls swooping on people, on children.”

In a report at the time Worcester Council said the system was “not fit for purpose, and wasteful of public funds”.

Data shows there was also a significant decline in England in the proportion of bird licences approved. Between 2015 and 2019, an average of 95 per cent of licences were granted; in 2020 this dropped to 73.4 per cent.

The number of lethal gull licences granted dropped from a 2015-2019 average of 194 to 95 in 2020, before rebounding to 312 in 2021.

Natural England said the licences have been improved to allow councils to act without asking in situations such as sleep deprivation and attacks on the vulnerable, but only two councils have received licences this year.

It admitted that it had struggled to cope with demand in 2020, meaning licences were issued when chicks had fledged, making them useless.

A Worcester City Council spokesman said its situation is better. “Natural England has approved every licence request this year, and that has enabled us to remove 196 gull nests and 359 eggs.”

Steph Bird-Halton, of Natural England, said: “There have been declines in populations of some gull species. We are rolling out licences which will allow authorities to take action through nest and egg destruction.”