THERE were 2,729 reports of rat infestations in St Helens borough last year.

Statistics from a freedom of information request submitted to the council found the amount of rat infestations dropped from 2018 (2,816) but was still 20 per cent higher than 2017 (2,274).

The road with the highest number of rat infestations reported last year was Derbyshire Hill Road in Parr with 37 while Warrington Road in Rainhill was placed in second with 25.

Fleet Lane in Parr was in third position with 21 rat reports.

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A council spokesman said: “This problem is not unique to St Helens and appears to be a national trend with rat populations increasing in recent years.

“There are many possible reasons for the increase.

"Milder winters lead to faster breeding cycles and higher survival rates, while site clearance as part of regeneration works and incidents of heavy rainfall as we’ve had in recent years will drive rats to the surface and lead to more reports.

“It’s important to note that St Helens Council offers a free pest control service, unlike many other local authorities across the country that charge for the service.

"Councils that move to a chargeable service have reported a significant fall off in demands.

"Subsequently using local authority pest control figures to compare rat numbers by location will present a distorted and misleading picture.

“Also, we would report a property as having a rodent infestation whether there is one or 100 rats present.

“We have a full reactive pest control service in St Helens using fully qualified officers to tackle rats and other pests for free.

"The team is currently completing the second phase of a sewer baiting scheme, where we are proactively reducing local rat populations within the sewers.

“We also have a full team of environmental health officers inspecting food premises in the borough to ensure they are pest free, environmental wardens investigating fly tipping incidents that support rodent populations, and an environmental control team that deals with complaints about rat infested properties and waste on private land.”