IRATE Worcester residents say they want more action to tackle seagulls where they live - claiming the pesky birds are "worse than ever".

People living in areas like Blackpole and St John's have contacted your Worcester News to urge council chiefs to take the battle out of the city centre.

As your Worcester News revealed last week, data has revealed falls in the seagull population of 31 per cent since 2007 after years of efforts to warn them off the city centre.

But some householders say their residential areas are still being plagued by the gulls, and want the focus to shift away from the main shopping area.

It follows an annual fake egg planting project on city centre roofs which has been credited with bringing numbers down.

Resident Matthew Brown, 52, a landscape gardener from Salters Close, Blackpole, said: "It's a load of twaddle.

"It's infested with gulls around here, absolutely infested.

"All what's happened is that they've made gulls think 'oh, my eggs don't hatch here, I'll move elsewhere' and they've gone out of the city centre to areas like this.

"We pay our council tax, we deserve to have it dealt with as much as anyone else."

Paul Burrows, 51, of Bransford Road, St John's, said: "If you go into St John's and look up you see seagulls all the time, looking for fast food to nick.

"You get the impression it could easily get worse."

The council has tracking data which shows how the city centre's nesting pairs gull population fell from 293 to 201 between 2007 and last year - 31 per cent.

But there was also a large fall when residential areas were taken into account, from 430 nesting pairs to 324, a 24 per cent decline.

Andy Staples, from Red Kite pest control, who deals with the seagulls on behalf of the council says he is trying to find a solution for areas like Blackpole.

"We aren't doing anything there for this season but we're aware of it as a potential problem, and it is being discussed," he said.

"We are looking to see what can be done but the problem is the roofs aren't accessible, a lot of them have asbestos unlike the city centre where we can easily get up there.

"But it is being discussed."

Councillor Andy Roberts, the cabinet member for cleaner and greener, said: "I know David Sutton (the head of the department) is specifically looking at this, it's not being ignored."