SEAGULLS dive-bombing families, biting toddlers and carrying away yelping dogs in their beaks – it sounds like the script from Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic, The Birds. 

But alarmingly, vicious seagull attacks like these are increasing in the UK, with tens of thousands of gulls taking over towns and cities across the country.

In a recent shocking case, a woman claimed that a gull swooped down and snatched her pet chihuahua from a Devon garden as she hung the washing out. The dog hasn't been seen since.

And it might sound ridiculous, but I believe it won't be long before a baby becomes the next victim of Britain's increasingly aggressive seagulls.

As a councillor and former mayor of Worcester – where the vicious and brassy flying rats have waged war on residents in recent years – I have witnessed first-hand the problems the UK-wide epidemic is causing.

One shop owner told me he'd seen a gull ferociously attack a young child in a pushchair, while a constituent emailed to say her dog had been attacked – just like Gizmo the chihuahua.

Elsewhere in Britain, elderly couple Roy and Brenda Pickard were reported to have been held hostage in their own home by gulls for six days last month after two chicks slipped on to the canopy directly above their door.

Roy, 77, ended up in hospital with head injuries after being attacked by one of the birds.

The truth is, people and animals up and down the country are being victimised by these gulls – some of which have been known to grow as big as dog.

And at this time of year, they're more violent than ever, as their chicks get ready to flee the nest.

It's led me to one, brutal, conclusion: We must kill the bloody things.

Gulls descending on our towns and cities

Britain is a country of animal lovers and I know some people will find my suggestion horrifying. But hear me out.

Seagulls are traditionally coast-dwelling birds: a day trip to the seaside would inevitably involve a throng of the sharp-beaked birds, desperate to steal a chip or your ice cream.

But now they've taken over densely-populated city streets.

They walk casually along the street beside us as if they own the place, ready to pounce on any poor person who dares to eat outside.

The statistics are alarming.

While the number of gulls at the seaside is declining – blamed on reduced habitats and the decline of the fishing industry leaving food for them to scavenge – in the past 20 years the number of city gulls have doubled.

Experts say the deluge in urban areas is down to hotter summers and milder winters, discarded food waste and buildings providing safe nesting sites for gulls away from predators.

Take Birmingham, Nottingham and Westbury in Wiltshire for example: all very much inland, but where residents and tourists have reported being plagued by gulls. In the past few years, doctors have even warned of a spike in patients requiring treatment for seagull bites and gashes.

Residents too frightened to sit in their gardens

Worcester is also about as far away from the sea as you can get – it's 80 miles from the nearest beach resort, Weston-super-Mare – yet my constituents tell me they're too frightened to venture into their own gardens for fear of gull attacks.

Councils are taking steps to stop this – such as hi-tech gull-proof bins and plastic eggs, which seagulls are encouraged to incubate instead of their own to allow the population to decline naturally.

They are forking out hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to tackle the crisis and have even created new jobs (you can now become a dedicated gull control officer for £23,000 a year).

But so far, nothing has worked – at a cost to taxpayers' health and safety.

Bleeding-heart liberals who hope the problem will simply go away – without offering a viable solution – will tell you that seagulls are cuddly little things who don't deserve to die.

But in actual fact, they're huge – with their wings partly outstretched some have been compared to Rottweilers in size.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says there are around 130,000 pairs of herring gulls – the best-known type of gull – in the UK during the summer months (over the winter, the number soars to an estimated 730,000 individual gulls, as birds migrate from overseas).

People forced to use umbrellas to leave their homes

Gulls have been been nesting on rooftops since the 1940s.

But nearly 80 years on, the situation has become so dire that people are reportedly having to use umbrellas to shield themselves from gulls – and their acrid droppings – when leaving their homes.

Nor is it just a peck people are worried about. The birds' beaks are specifically designed to pick things up – whether that's the sandwich you're about to tuck into or your beloved pet.

In 2015, a group of gulls pecked to death a Yorkshire Terrier as it played in a Cornwall back garden.

And as I write this, the fate of Gizmo, the dog supposedly gull-napped this week, remains unknown.

Visitors to Grimsby, Lincolnshire, also recently witnessed a "psycho" gull dive-bombing a man, in scenes reminiscent of the Hitchcock film, where birds launch murderous attacks on humans.

Some experts say the gulls have become so used to humans that they're no longer scared of us.

And they don't simply pose a health and safety risk.

The birds start screeching at about 4am, then spend their days dropping faeces everywhere – on people's cars (where they can damage the paintwork), washing lines, and businesses.

Only one solution

It's unsurprising then that tourism is taking a hit.

People are avoiding eating at outdoor cafes while business owners in my constituency are coming to work to find their shops blanketed in white droppings.

So as the gull infestation continues to spiral out of control, what's the solution?

It seems to me that the only one is a cull. And I'm not alone.

A YouGov poll in 2015 found 44 per cent of Brits tend to support a cull on gulls, compared to 36 per cent who are opposed – and many consider them to be worse than pigeons.

The same year, then-prime minister David Cameron called for a "big conversation" on the issue following a spate of gull attacks, including one on a pet tortoise, which died days later.

So why has nothing been done about it?

In 2017, Oliver Colvile, then MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, led a parliamentary debate on this country's "murderous" seagulls, warning there could be "gull wars on our high streets".

He called for gull-proof buildings and highlighted the worrying impact on tourism.

In Worcester we've tried everything – we've doubled the amount we're spending on gull control to £30,000 a year – but nothing is working. The problem is simply getting worse.

Gun-toting vigilantes prowling the streets for gulls

Some Brits have become so outraged by the havoc they've armed themselves with guns and taken to the streets to kill the birds. I certainly don't advocate this – and it is, of course, illegal.

The RSPB says gulls, like all wild birds, are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, so you can't kill or try to control them without a licence.

People who do so can face up to six months in prison or a £5,000 fine.

This March, tourist John Llewellyn Jones was handed a 12-week curfew and ordered to pay £750 in costs after smashing a seagull to death because it stole his chips.

He hurled the bird against a wall in front of horrified children in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset. Obviously, this was a horrendous and cruel attack.

Government licences can be granted to allow the professional and humane killing of urban gulls as a last resort where there's a significant risk to public health or safety.

And, from where I'm standing, there definitely is one.

Yes, some people might think a cull is just as cruel (the RSPB questions the "appropriateness of lethal control" and says the herring gull is a declining, threatened species).

But with a licence, it would be done properly.

If you or I were carrying out the same sorts of behaviours that gulls do every day then we'd be arrested. Yet these birds can do it with impunity.

As far as I'm concerned, these rats with wings have been getting away with it for far too long – their time is up!

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