PRESSURE is mounting on East Lothian Council to go back to the drawing board to solve a pigeon problem in Dunbar.

Plans were revealed last month for a potential cull of the birds before netting would be put in place under the rail bridge on the town’s Spott Road to stop the animals from roosting there.

Concerns had been raised that birds were swooping from under the bridge and startling drivers, while the animals’ excrement was also creating a slip hazard on the footpath.

Now, a political party and a bird control expert have called on the local authority to look again at the options available.

Among those calling for a rethink is the Animal Welfare Party.

Kay Hamilton, Dowager Duchess of Hamilton, is a member of AWP and said: “The birds certainly shouldn’t be killed.

“This is ridiculous and all out of proportion.

“Nor should the council be thinking of installing netting, as we know many birds can become trapped in netting and suffer horribly before dying.

“Alternative solutions have to be found.”

Vanessa Hudson, leader of Animal Welfare Party, described moves to kill the birds or install anti-bird netting as “completely out of step with the times”.

She said: “It’s 2021 and time for us to accept that we share our spaces with wild animals, including pigeons, and humane solutions should be pursued.

“It is an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal, and nets cause nesting and visiting birds the most horrific distress and injury before death by hanging, starvation or dehydration.”

Guy Merchant, of Bird Control Consultancy Services International (BCCSI), told the Courier that carrying out a cull would be “a waste of time and money”.

Similarly, he suggested that putting netting under the width of the bridge could create other problems, such as trapping live birds, which could then lead to legal issues.

Mr Merchant, who previously lived in East Lothian and operates his business from Cambridgeshire, said: “The very best thing you can do is mesh above the pavement area.

“You completely mesh above the pavement area so you are excluding the birds from either side but leaving the central reservation open.

“That means that the cost of the netting operation is dramatically reduced and, secondly, if you kick all the resident birds out from the under the bridge they are going to go to people’s properties in Dunbar and cause a huge nuisance."

Mr Merchant said that left the birds to roost and perch in the central reservation of the bridge and their droppings would fall onto the road, rather than the pavement.

At a meeting of Dunbar Community Council last month, it was revealed that work under the bridge was due to take place in mid-February.

East Lothian Council said that the bridge was ‘home’ to “hundreds of pigeons which are causing problems for drivers and also fouling the footpath”.

It was said that work could take up to five days while the underside of the bridge was cleaned and re-netted in a bid to prevent pigeons from roosting there in the future.