Meaford Council (Image from Meaford YouTube)
Meaford is looking into having pests removed from sites set for development.
Council approved having staff come back with a report after Deputy Mayor Shirley Keaveney brought forward a motion during a meeting on May 27.
Keaveney’s motion says as Meaford is seeing an increase in development through its urban area, the demolitions sometimes involved in the process may cause issues with pests who call these buildings home.
“My concern is that we have had a couple of occasions in Meaford where buildings have been demolished that were full of rats in particular and those rats did get into neighbouring residences and I just feel very strongly that it is not fair for those residents to have to deal with those kinds of infestations,” says Keaveney.
While her original motion called for the extermination of the pests to occur to reduce the impact on the demolition and development process, Coun. Brandon Forder proposed an amendment.
“I would also like to see if we could explore the options of some humane alternatives that don’t require just extermination only, not to say that I am not in favour of that, but I would like to explore all options and determine what type of more humane alternatives may be worth consideration,” says Forder.
Forder’s proposed amendment was approved by council.
