Bringing birds of prey into Spalding in an attempt to lessen the amount of pigeon poo on the streets has been mooted amid a proposal to bring outside contractors in to clean parts of the town centre due to staff shortages.
Members of Spalding Town Forum last week expressed their concern at the cleanliness of the town, with bird excrement, particularly in and around the former Beales Department Store,being highlighted as of particular concern.
As previously reported, it’s also been an issue at Spalding Station.
And amid labour shortages – the forum was told South Holland District Council was looking to get in outside contractors due to staffing issues with its Pride team – the idea of birds of prey being introduced to help scare off pigeons was raised.
Coun Christine Lawton raised several issues with benches and plants and said: “I saw bunting being put up, but you can’t see it for the pigeon mess.
“It’s disgraceful. The mess is offensive and spoils efforts people might make to improve the look of the town.”
Emily Spicer, SHDC’s place manager, said: “I share your concerns, especially about the level of pigeon excrement which has found itself down our path ways and is unpleasant..
“Beth (Stinson, the town centre improvements coordinator) and a number of officers are looking at whether we can get a private contractor in to see if we can focus on some of those particularly grotty areas.
“We’re finding it difficult in finding additional staff for our PRIDE team at the moment for a number of reasons including the employment market.
“However we are looking at a contractor to see if we can focus on those areas so it would be easier for the street cleansing team.
“We appreciate we need to work with our partners and key stakeholders in the town and shops to ensure there is proofing and other places to ensure it doesn’t keep happening again because otherwise it will just be a repeat cycle.
“We need to have some longer term solutions for these problems.”
Forum chair Roger Gambba-Jones advocated the birds of prey, something that has been used elsewhere.
“It’s worked well in other town centres and that’s a longer term solution,” Coun Gambba-Jones said. “Once they’re nesting somewhere successfully they have a very good impact on something like pigeons.
“If it can work in larger towns and cities I feel it would be very effective in somewhere like Spalding.
“That to me would be far more effective than sticking spikes and nets up and goodness knows what.
“All they do is end up with feathers and droppings hanging in the air.”
He described it as a “more humane way” after Coun Angela Newton joked about using a shotgun on the pigeons.
Coun Elizabeth Sneath called for people to be told not to feed the pigeons in the town centre.
“I’m being told people are feeding the pigeons purposely. They’re coming into town with a bag of food and feeding them in certain areas. I know we all love birds but to encourage the pigeons in town is not good.”
There were also calls for more more benches and planters to be fixed.
Coun Gambba-Jones said: “It’s where we let ourselves down every time. We’re so keen to get this stuff installed but we never look after it. I find it slightly disappointing we’ve got to spend new money in fixing old things.
“I thought the idea about much of this stuff is to create new things to bring it back in, not just fix what we’ve neglected. That’s an invitation for people to neglect things.”
