Bird control
Bird control
Keywords Environmental management strategy, Health and safety
Architects and local authority planners have a key role to play in combating bird pests one of the biggest potential health hazards found in urban areas according to leading environmental risk management specialists National Britannia.
The firm, which has installed hundreds of deterrent systems over the past 12 years to drive birds away from prominent town centre buildings, maintained that architects can help tackle this problem by making roofs, ledges, façades and other structures less attractive to these creatures.
Said David Harry, National Britannia's operations manager for bird control: "milder winters, outdoor eating and the nature of modern building design have led to an explosion of feral pigeon numbers in many town centres.
"This has resulted in buildings,pavements and seats being streaked with fouling, blocked drains and the risk of disease. People don't realise how much damage birds can do. Fouling damages stonework as well as presenting a health and safety hazard to maintenance workers.
"Birds also spread salmonella,typhoid and ornithosis and are, in many ways, more dangerous to health than rodents", he added.
"While netting, spikes and other control systems are effective in driving birds away from one building, they simply move to the next available building. It is time we started planning for the future and designing buildings which don't attract birds", he said.
He urged architects to take advice from bird control professionals when designing buildings and he called on council planners to encourage designs which are unattractive to birds.
"Subtle changes in design can make a big difference. It may be something as simple as making the angle of a ledge steeper but this can make it virtually impossible for birds to perch. On those features which cannot be altered, bird control professionals can work with designers to install discreet protective measures before the building is completed and thus stop a bird problem taking hold", he said.
David Mills, Centre Manager of the 113 unit Brunel Shopping Centre in Swindon, where National Britannia recently installed large-scale netting to tackle a persistent pigeon problem, supported Mr Harry's view.
He explained that, while the netting was very effective in those parts of the centre where it had been installed, it would be extremely expensive to cover thewhole centre.
Mr Mills said: "As with every practical difficulty, changes in the original design could have lessened the scale of the problem. In the real world, with finite resources, we can't expect to eliminate the problem completely through building design but the best we can hope for is a design that reduces the number of potential roosting sites".
Although birds are a problem in most town centres, businesses in Swindon, a town renowned for growth, are determined to ensure the pigeon problem is minimised.
Mr Harry argued that the rapid rate of development in Swindon and similar towns presented a clear opportunity for planners to pre-empt future problems by insisting on bird deterrent designs.
Further information from Eoghan Mortell Quadrant Public Relations. Tel: 01222 237333.
