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A ground-breaking scheme  to control the number of aggressive seagulls in Bridlington has been hailed a huge success and is planned to be rolled out around the town. After thousands of complaints over the years from locals and visitors alike, dive- bombing and violent seagulls should now become a thing of the past after a trial to identify the culprit birds was deemed a great success.

Birds that are known ‘dive bombers’ and that are generally ‘anti-social’ will now be easily identifiable with electronic ankle tags stating which town they are from along with a unique identity number.

To help with the roll-out a number of staff are being recruited to identify and tag the birds. Applications for the post are welcome for the seasonal work which will commence shortly.Anyone who falls victim to aggressive seabirds can call a hotline number to report incidents and quote the reference on the tag. Seagulls that arrive from other areas, such as Scarborough, Hornsea and Filey and other resorts on the Yorkshire Coast  - which migrate to Brid for ‘rich pickings’ - are hoped to become part of the scheme in the coming months.

It is understood that around six jobs will be created with a starting salary of £24,000, plus overtime and early morning allowances. Early starts are necessary to tag the gulls when they are at their most sleepy. The scheme will be administered by the not -for-profit company, Freedom Of Our Locals Seagulls and the £3.5 million pound contract is expected to last for a year until April 1st, 2022.

Chief Executive Jess Forfun said: “We hope this will bring the problem of anti-social seagulls to an end once and for all.” “Wardens will identify the aggressive seabirds and then they will be tagged and monitored... it’s similar to an ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order), and when the birds step out of line we can recall them.” continued Jess.

She added:”We can also identify the undesirable and unwanted seabirds from other resorts such as Filey and Scarborough and remove them back to where they came from... we don’t want them here scavenging in our bins and stealing our holidaymakers chips.” In recent years Scarborough birds have been identified as some of the most aggressive in the U.K.- with more incidents reported than anywhere else in the country.