CIVIC leaders in Ross-on-Wye were blasted last night for saying they will not be contracting pest control experts to cull the town’s pigeon population.

Geof Lodge, who had offered £2,500 of his own money to the council to solve the pigeon problem in Wilton Road, criticised the lack of leadership.

In a letter read out to Ross Town Council last week, he said he believed the mayor and clerk misled other members of the council in unanimously voting for his proposal.

“All of you, including the mayor accepted, yet nine days later and in the absence of any information I called at the town clerk’s office and only then was I told that the town council should not have accepted the proposal.”

Pigeons gather and roost at the wall opposite the Man of Ross which results in a large amount of bird faeces on the pavement.

Councillor Bramer explained, at the meeting on December 10, that the council was totally in favour of accepting Mr Lodge’s proposals but it legally could not do so.

He said: “We have been advised that if we were to do so we would not be fulfilling our legal obligations as set out by the government, Defra in particular.

“For that reason, the town clerk has acted responsibly in saying that we were unable to lawfully go forward with the proposals we made.”

Town clerk Sarah Robson said that the decision the council took at its last meeting was to budget for pest control for the next financial year.

“It was not to contract anybody to cull the pigeons or to take any other action at all other than to put a new budget head in the 2019/20 for £2,000 for pest control,” she said.

“That was the extent of the decision that the council took, and I have carried out the council’s wishes in regard to that.”