Residents tell councillors: don't kill town's pigeons

Three people used their right to speak at the full meeting of Wycombe District Council to question the move. About 15 sat in the public gallery to oppose the plan.

They said it was illegal and would increase pigeon numbers – but a boss denied this and said it was vital to protect public health. Some residents supported the plan, they said.

A petition bearing about 400 signatures was also presented to the meeting. The council plans to trap and kill pigeons and then scare away the remaining with a hawk.

Ellen Wise said she had provided the Conservative-run council with evidence in previous years that such a plan would increase numbers.

She said: “Why is our council accepting flawed and commercially biased advice, using public money, and is proposing to act on this advice?”

Kim Ashford asked: “Are you aware that it is illegal to cull any birds for the purpose of reducing fouling of buildings and during the breeding season and that we will be pursuing the illegality of any action taken by the council with our respective MPs?”

Kim Pearce said: “Are you aware of the groundswell of local and wider disgust for culling, which has been proved does not work?”

Yet Councillor Clive Harriss said the move would ‘reduce the accumulation of faeces in the town centre, which can be a danger to human health’.

Pigeons were a ‘nuisance’ he said and the trapping and culling would be done ‘humanely’. Advice was taken from towns which used the method, not companies, he said.

He added: “The council is aware that this is a controversial issue. However, our correspondence shows there are those in favour as well as those against this plan.”

And Cllr Harriss, cabinet member for wellbeing and neighbourhoods, said: “Naturally, we have made all necessary consultation as well as legal consultation and I’m happy that the legal advice we received is correct.”

Mrs Wise asked the council to install a Dovecote, a home for pigeons, instead. She offered to clean it ‘for a very small sum’.

Ellen Wise was amongst those spoke.

This had been considered by the council for All Saint’s Church in the town centre but was rejected after members were told pigeons are now mostly in Frogmoor.

Yet Cllr Harriss said ‘we have looked into this at some length’ and the Dovecote would be ‘ineffective’. Buildings would be ‘infested’ with pigeons, he said.

Residents were told they had three minutes to speak and could ask one supplementary question.

Yet Mrs Wise spoke out after Cllr Harriss’ final answer at the council’s Queen Victoria Road offices and said: “I’m sorry to do this but it is illegal. You are wrongly advised.”

Later, Liberal Democrat councillor Julia Wassell asked for assurance that the hawk ‘doesn’t go round Wycombe devouring pigeons’.

Cllr Julie Pritchard, chairman of the High Wycombe Town Committee, which organised the plan, hit back.

She said: “If Cllr Wassell had bothered to listen to any of the options over the last 13 years, she would be very well aware that hawks do not reduce the population by killing anything.”

Cllr Pritchard said: “They act as a deterrent because they scare them away. They do not go around killing them themselves.”

Click the link below for more stories and letters about the plan.