Town hall in a flap as pigeons cost it £360,000

A COUNCIL that fitted solar panels on thousands of homes to meet green targets is having to spend more than £360,000 on wire mesh to deter pigeons.

Nottingham City Council received more than 300 complaints from its tenants about birds nesting under the panels.

As well as being a noise nuisance, the pigeons caused leaking roofs and blocked the gutters, while their droppings are considered hazardous to human health. The dung can also reduce the amount of sunlight captured by the panels.

The Labour-run authority had to seek permission to spend £362,664 on the anti-pigeon meshes for old and new panels because it has been monitored by a government-appointed panel since 2020.

This followed the failure of a not-forprofit energy company set up by the council, which cost taxpayers £38million.

Earlier this year, an investigation found £24million of ring-fenced housing rent revenue could have been wrongly spent on projects other than housing – on top of nearly £16million of housing revenue account funds previously discovered to have been ‘unlawfully’ spent.

The solar panels scheme was intended for low-income residents and was funded with millions in central government grants.

The council has fitted more than 3,000 panels on tenants’ roofs as part of its efforts to become the UK’s first carbonneutral city by 2028 and said birds nesting under them was a common problem.