PLANS by a Yorkshire council to host "pigeon-awareness days" have been ridiculed by councillors as "something out of cloud-cuckoo land''.
An action plan, in a report to Calderdale Council's health and social care scrutiny panel, includes suggestions for hosting pigeon-awareness days, building dovecotes and removing eggs in a bid to get rid of feral pigeons from Brighouse. And some resi
dents, pestered by the ever-increasing number of birds
littering their streets, think £10,000 is a price worth paying. A similar £13,000 control strategy was implemented in Halifax in 2004.
Calderdale councillor Colin Stout (Ind, Brighouse), who has long campaigned against the birds and backs on-the-spot fines for people who feed them, said: "There are more and more of the birds on the streets and the problem has got way out of hand.''
Gary Blakely, who runs a fish and chip restaurant in
Canal Street, said the birds had become so bold they
had even divebombed his customers.
He said: "It has got much worse recently.
"I've been tempted to chase them off myself but I don't want to be the madman from the chippy running around with a broom over my head."
But Coun Paul Rogan (English Democrats, Rastrick), said he was not in favour of spending money on exterminating pigeons.
He said: "There is only one way of eradicating pigeons and that is for people to stop feeding them. You can spend £50,000 on exterminating them and if their food source is still there they will come back.
"We might even get some from Kirklees and if we are unlucky we will get Bradford pigeons coming to Brighouse too.
'"As for 'pigeon-awareness' days, words fail me – it is beyond the realms of slapstick humour and could have come straight out of a Monty Python sketch. Whoever has suggested that must think that we have money to burn.''
And council cabinet member, Coun Craig Whittaker (Con, Rastrick), said: "I think it's nonsense, it's out of cloud cuckoo land. Pigeon-awareness days? Absolute nonsense.
"As for the money being talked about for this scheme, for goodness sake, you could build an extension to your
house for that sort of money.''
The report is to be voted on at the next council meeting and could be accepted by the end of the month.
