ENVIRONMENTAL health experts have issued a rallying call over "aggressive" Worcester seagulls - saying more roofs could be painted RED to turn them away.

After a summer of repeated concern over the pesky birds, talks are being held about new ideas to try and reduce the menace.

Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) now says it wants to revisit a wacky idea to get more red paint on the roofs of buildings.

Around Europe evidence from scores of towns and cities has shown that seagulls avoid landing on roofs which are red, although experts are not sure why.

The gulls tend to like cities with white roofs, such as Worcester, because from a distance they look not dissimilar to cliff surfaces.

Red Kite pest control, which is contracted by Worcester City Council to tackle seagulls, has already sampled the red idea on random roofs with success.

Mark Cox, from WRS, now says he wants to revisit it in the hope it could reduce the population further.

The body also wants talks with planning officers about how more new-build developers can be persuaded to go for red roofing instead of more traditional colours.

"Seagulls are intelligent birds and there's now less of a concentration of them in the city centre," said Mr Cox.

"But it is quite difficult because if you look at Blackpole, for example many buildings tend to be quite large and industrial.

"There is no easy solution and it's a problem right across the South West, but I would say we are getting better than most at dealing with this.

"In the red roof trial, the contractors started painting some sections red and where that was done, the birds did not land on that spot.

"It might be a coincidence, but it's something to explore further."

He made his comments during a council scrutiny meeting, where Councillor Roger Knight said he was "frustrated" that the red roof idea is taking so long to progress.

"The red roof idea came up four-and-a-half years ago, we were trying to get it done on the Whitehouse Hotel but it never happened," he said.

Councillor Marc Bayliss, who chairs the scrutiny committee, is going to arrange a special future session of his panel to debate the gulls topic in detail.

The work on tackling Worcester's seagulls has largely been based on a strategy where fake plastic eggs are left on roofs to discourage birds from leaving real ones.

It seems to have worked, with the city centre's population of nesting pairs 181 at the last count compared to 317 in 2008, when the gull menace was at its height.

But many people say the birds have simply moved to residential areas, with complaints about them dive-bombing children in St John's and spreading muck around Blackpole Retail Park since KFC opened.

Back in April Worcester made national headlines after a vicious seagull swooped on a young city woman, 22-year-old Jessica Charles and attacked her hand, drawing blood.

A Worcester News poll has found 70 per cent of readers want more action to tackle them.