Call to shelve Gwynedd pest control axe plans

Plans to scrap pest control services in Gwynedd should be shelved, say councillors.

The authority is under pressure to make savings, and approved £4.6m of cuts to services in March.

But a committee today unanimously recommended the council reject cutting pest control, and instead wants to see the service made "self-financing".

Between 2014 and 2015, council pest controllers were called out 1,190 times - with wasps the most common problem.

At an earlier meeting, councillors called the service "important and necessary" and said if it was closed there was "a risk that private companies would completely control the market and increase their prices".

A Gwynedd Council spokesman said: "The council's corporate scrutiny committee today agreed unanimously with the recommendation of maintaining the pest control service by aiming to make the service self-financing."