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Rats alive! Villages plagued by menace

Published 6 Aug 2011 09:30 Print Comments 34 Comments

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Calls to Fife Council to deal with rats in Torryburn and High Valleyfield have "increased by 150 per cent in a year".

And Anne MacFarlane says the figures back up her claim that vermin are being attracted by food waste in brown bins - part of the new four-bin trial being introduced by the council.

She stays at The Ness in Torryburn and said, "The two areas where they've tried this pilot have experienced a rise of 150 per cent in call-outs in the past year so what are the council going to do about it?

"I do not have any problem at all with recycling but I think they should stop the food waste part of this and engage with the people experiencing a problem."

Anne stopped putting food waste into the brown bin after seeing rats in her garden, and her neighbour's garden.

The brown bins have small holes in the side to aid composting and she believes the unwelcome visitors are being attracted by the smell of the food waste.

Figures provided by Fife Council for High Valleyfield show there were two call-outs to deal with rats in 2007-08, five in 2008-09, three in 2009-10 and eight in 2010-11.

Since the start of April, there have been a further two call-outs this year.

In Torryburn, there were no call-outs to deal with rats between 2007 and 2009, there were two in 2009-10 and five in 2010-11.

The figures show there has been another call-out since April.

Miss MacFarlane said, "Thirteen visits in 2010-11 may not seem like a lot but it's 13 separate visits to deal with rats - and that's only the recorded call-outs.

"It's increased by 150 per cent in a year. I know a neighbour who has never called the council out and he says he's caught 10 rats!

"It's £35 a time for the council to come out, have a look and lay the poison down so that's why people have been putting down traps themselves."

She added, "As for those who say it's because we live by the Forth, why weren't there are any call-outs for rats in 2007-09 then?

"And High Valleyfield isn't by the river, what about the rise in call-outs there?"

Douglas Mayne, a team leader in Fife Council's environmental strategy department, said, "In percentage terms, yes, it demonstrates a significant increase but the actual numbers, given the size of the population in that area, it's not an awful lot and the figures we have suggests the argument doesn't stand up.

"We did a comparison and looked at figures covered by the four bin system and it's not come up as a major issue.

"For the whole of Glenrothes, the number of call-outs for rats in 2008-09 was 51, in 2009-10 it was seven and in 2010-11 it was six.

"In Markinch, for the same years, it was four, one and zero and for Leuchars, which was also in a pilot area, it was five, two and zero.

"To put that into perspective, for the whole of Fife there were 1323 call-outs for rats in 2008-09, 1333 in 2009-10 and 979 in 2010-11.

"The food waste attracting rats, it's not something we have come across before, and we have around 50,000 households on this system recycling food waste. The figures for the pilot areas don't seem to back it up either.

"Whether that's under-reporting, I'm not in a position to say, but there are natural variations from one area to the next and a whole range of factors."

Johnston Little, of High Valleyfield community council, said, "I've never heard about a problem with rats up here, I'm sure the folk up would be on to me if there was.

"I wouldn't think the bins would have anything to do with it as you put the food waste in a bag before it goes in the bin."

Sheila Carribine, the chair of Low Valleyfield community council, added, "I don't tend to use it as I have a compost heap but if there's food waste it could be attracting vermin.

"However, at the West Fife and Coastal Villages Forum there are representatives of all the different community councils and if had been a really serious issue I think it would have been mentioned there.

"It may be a coincidence as there are always complaints about vermin from time to time."

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