Environmental Health at Winchester City Council responds to our recent article Marking World Pest Day with a targeted campaign to local authorities published in the 4th June 2019 edition of LocalGov:

The National trade body the British Pest Control Association (BPCA) marked World Pest Day with a targeted campaign to local authorities urging councils across the UK to put pest management firmly on their radar.

Pest Management is firmly on the radar here at Winchester City Council and has been for many years. We have real experience of rodenticide resistance due to the L12Q gene and previously worked with the University of Reading in its identification.

Effective Pest Management is multi faceted and requires a collaborative approach. Individual pest management companies need to work together, not in isolation. To achieve this they need to understand the locality, the nature of resistance, the appropriate rodenticides and their application. They need to know which partners to engage in managing the complexities of rodent activity and infestations which can quickly become out of control.

In the years of austerity routine sewer baiting previously undertaken by sewerage providers has ceased in some areas giving rise to anecdotal evidence of increased surface level activity inside and outside homes and businesses. Add to this an incomplete understanding about resistance and rodenticides amongst some in the pest management industry combined with an absence of collaborative working a perfect storm arises. This is often when the Local Authority Environmental Health service is called upon.

Without doubt, local authorities do have an important role in rodent management, but we cannot do this alone. The co-operation and collaboration of pest management companies, sewerage undertakers and landowners is critical to effective management of rodents.