‘We must save city from gull menace’
Bath resident Tim Newark reports on action being taken by B&NES Council to tackle nesting gulls and highlights the health dangers posed by the birds
Bath city centre residents living in close proximity to the estimated 835 breeding pairs of gulls in Bath face a new fear as dead herring gulls have been found in Cornwall carrying avian flu.
Just two months ago, five dead herring gulls in Cornwall tested positive for bird flu - the virus that became Spanish flu in 1918, killing an estimated 50 to 100 million people.
More recently a bird flu variant, H5N1, emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 causing great alarm and killing six people. Last month most of Southampton was declared at “higher risk” from bird flu, according to the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
Defra is urging Southampton residents to report any dead gulls or other birds so they can be tested for the virus.
What is most worrying is that gulls have now became mainly urban breeding creatures – 80 per cent nesting in cities – and living in close proximity to city centre residents.
Bath MP Wera Hobhouse is aware of the misery they already cause to city centre residents, but now there is a new danger.
“People’s health is suffering from the lack of sleep induced by gull noise every spring,” she said recently before the news of them carrying bird flu, “but Natural England simply responds by saying if it’s too noisy, close your windows and move your beds.”
Citing the professional opinion of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s environmental health officers that this persistent nesting close to human accommodation poses a genuine risk to health, she finds “it offensive that their judgement is being dismissed in such a flippant manner.”
Bath Councillor Tim Ball is equally fed up with the lack of support from Natural England following the trial of an operational licence in Bath last year that resulted in only 24 nests being cleared out of a gull population of 835 breeding pairs.
“Natural England has set the bar too high for us to deal with urban gulls,” says Cllr Ball. “We need to be able to carry out citywide treatments rather than having to ask permission nest by nest. We have protested to Natural England and the government but to little affect.”
So rather than waiting for Natural England to alter their obstinate attitude, B&NES is gull proofing its own city roofs this year to deter the annual nesting onslaught.
“Proof your Roof” is the campaign slogan and the council is leading the way by protecting their Guildhall headquarters and 53 other council owned commercial and residential properties in the city centre.
Central guttering on Georgian roofs are favourite spots for nesting so these are being netted over and chimney pots are being fitted with a halo of spikes to deter the birds from sitting on these lofty positions to warn off rivals with their ear-splitting cries.
“We’ve established the Severn Estuary Gull Group,” said B&NES Environmental Protection Manager Aled Williams, “to work together with other cities such as Gloucester and Worcester badly affected by urban gull breeding colonies. We’re sharing ideas with them.”
If B&NES needs to adapt listed building consent to allow residents to proof their roofs without the hindrance of bureaucratic paperwork, they will engage with the relevant department.
Aside from gull proofing historic architecture, the council is urging new buildings to be designed to prevent nesting.
“We will reinforce messages to developers about the need to design out potential nesting sites,” they say.
If followed through, this will be good news for Bath city centre residents such as Rebecca Roberts.
“We’re fed up being woken up at the crack of dawn by screeching urban gulls for six months of the year from spring to late summer,” she said.
“If it’s a warm night, we can’t even open our windows. That, combined with the profuse mess they make, means we can barely sit outside in our garden.
“It seems extraordinary that their rights are better protected than ours. It really is a matter of public health.”
“Gulls remain one of the major hazards in our local community,” says Bath resident Richard Wendorf.
“Noise, excrement, aggressive behaviour: these are serious detriments to both those who live here and those millions of people who visit Bath each year. We need to break the logjam and take charge of our beautiful Georgian city.”
It appears B&NES is listening and finally preparing to take action.
“It’s simply gone too far,” sais Ms Hobhouse. “Cities are not the natural environment for gulls, and if their coastal population is falling, then let’s look at habitat restoration, not the reduction of the quality of human life in cities.”
And now they have the potential to spread avian flu that can cross over to humans, this is even more urgent.