A Bridgend council cabinet member defend the local authority's pest control service after a councillor revealed an increase in referrals over "rat problems".
An independent councillor asked the Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC) cabinet at a full council meeting on January 19 why pest control requests relating to rats had seen a "significant" increase in recent years.
Independent Councillor Tim Thomas revealed that he was getting a "significant" number of referrals over "rat problems".
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The councillor said: "I am getting a significant number of referrals in the local community over rat problems and from my written question, I note from the data that since 2016-17 the number of pest control requests specifically for rats has increased by 53 per cent.
"I would just be interested if the Cabinet member has any insight for this quite significant increase.
"The question [now] is why?"
BCBC Cabinet Member for Wellbeing and Future Generations, Councillor Dhanisha Patel, said the council is seeing "early indications" of reduced calls after taking on a new contractor for its pest control service.
She said: "The new operator is providing a call before they attend. Rather than just turning up at Tuesday, 3pm when somebody is doing the school run, they are calling residents to make sure that they are at the property.
"That has meant that they are able to get through a lot more of the workload."
Cllr Patel added that the Bridgend County Borough was "fortunate" to have a free service - revealing that this was something that nearly changed before the pandemic.
She said: "Pre-pandemic, it was one of the options that we were looking to introduce a fee for.
"Obviously I did not want to do that, but with the budget cuts and austerity it was something that we were considering.
"We tried our best to protect it and I think the fact that residents during the pandemic were at home more often, we were seeing an increase in calls. We managed to make the case to retain it as a free service.
"It is not free in other counties.
"We are quite fortunate here in Bridgend that we do offer a pest control service that is free at the point of need."
Cllr Patel said that it was difficult to pinpoint exactly where the pest control issues are at their worst - whether they are more prevalent in the private rented sector or social housing sector - as "not everyone reports rodents and not everyone reports pests."
She said that there is "still a stigma" around having the pest control service around, adding: "People don't want to see that van outside their property and their neighbours talking about them, so that is a bit of an issue."
However, she revealed that from the council's own case work it was possible to reveal that the greater volume of calls were coming from the social housing sector.
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