Sir –Mr Phillpott starts his letter (WN, July 17) with a number of personal insults and then says we need an intelligent debate about my campaign to “cull the gull”!

He says that acting on the concerns of residents and businesses whose daily lives have been made a misery by these vile creatures is “playing to the gallery” whereas normal people would call it democracy when a councillor listens to and acts on people’s justifiable concerns and cries for help.

He admits that gulls are ”scavengers” and that they are “turning up in ever-increasing numbers” but then goes on to claim they are “ in decline”!

But his main confusion in opposing a cull is that he wants “policies that will harmlessly ease the problem”.

That is exactly the point – we have been trying this for the last three years and it is a complete failure such that we were told last week that gull numbers in the city are now higher than ever before.

So what is the point of carrying on with policies that have already been an abject failure?

People talk about the right of gulls to be here.

Who has given these creatures this right?

Their natural environment is over the oceans, not in a densely populated urban area where their lifestyle will inevitably bring them into sharp conflict with human beings.

Gull lovers need to get out of their morally superior little bubble, perhaps by meeting people whose lives and businesses are being blighted every day by these flying rats. Hopefully that will also clarify their confusion.

Alan Amos

County and City Councillor