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Bridgend Council is considering ending its free pest control service when the current contract with Rentokil ends in April 2021 (pdf).
A report prepared by officers highlights stories in the press which said Bridgend was the “most rat-infested town in the UK”, though the statistics used to draft the stories were about call-outs to pest control rather than numbers.
Bridgend is currently one of the few local authorities in the UK to offer a free-of-charge pest control service – which may account for the higher-than-average call-out rate. At present this service covers rats, mice, cockroaches and bedbugs, though charges are applied for problems with fleas and wasps.
Seven Welsh local authorities don’t provide a pest control service at all; eleven charge residents for all pests, while three councils charge for all pests except rats.
The current contract with Rentokil (which took over the original contract when it bought Mitie Pest Control) was extended by a year in 2020 and is set to end on 30th April 2021. The contract is currently worth £63,400 a year, with an additional £16,474 charge for a sewer baiting programme (paid for by Dwr Cymru).
The options put forward by officers include:
- Option 1: No contract renewal/service is scrapped, saving £63,400 a year. Residents will need to hire pest control services privately. Talks would take place with Dwr Cymru on sewer baiting.
- Option 2: Renegotiate the contract and introduce a charge to residents. This would result in a net cost to BCBC of between £23-38,000 a year depending on the extent to which BCBC subsidises the scheme.
- Option 3: Continue to provide pest control free-of-charge on the same terms, which would cost £95,000 a year.
Option 1 is the preferred option and has been included as a future cut in the draft 2021-22 council budget, though any change to current services (Options 1 & 2) will require a statutory 12-week consultation.
