'Enormous' nest of rats in Windsor needs fixing, says dismayed visitor

A visitor to Windsor has decried the lack of decisive action by the Royal Borough to tackle an ‘enormous’ nest of rats near Peascod Street.

Elaine Clark visits Windsor to see her son, who lives in the Centric building in Acre Passage – a cul-de-sac to the rear of Peascod Street, with a walkway leading through.

It ‘tends to be very busy,’ because people use it for pick-up and drop-off, given its proximity to the castle and the shopping area.

At the top of the passage there are some large industrial bins. They are ‘always full and often overflowing,’ said Elaine. This has attracted rats.

“I’ve stood and watched people take kids out and put them in buggies right next to those bins. They don’t look and see the rats are there,” said Elaine.

To make matters worse, bags of shop waste also appear alongside a regular street bin – encouraging the rats to venture out to the public footpath ‘right next to several restaurants and cafés.’

Elaine and her son have been taking pictures and contacting Windsor and Maidenhead council for the past three months.

Though they were told there was ‘an active investigation’ in March, Elaine let the Royal Borough know in April that ‘things seem to be getting worse not better.’

Elaine says she was told by an officer that the council has ‘worked with businesses to improve waste storage’ and is also working to put more bait down.

“If she [the officer] thinks the photographs I took on Sunday show ‘improved waste storage,’ she’s on a different planet to me,” said Elaine.

“There is waste overflowing from the bins at the back by the bushes and there’s a pile of plastic rubbish bags alongside the bin on the footpath. That's just not good enough.”

Elaine is also unconvinced that more bait will solve the problem.

“We're talking about a significant number of rats,” she said. “We’ve seen about eight to 10 of them all at the same time under the big industrial bins,” she said.

“If you put bait down, how many dead rats are you going to have there, with kids running around? This is not a solution.

“In my view, they need to clear the bushes next to the bins – remove the habitat so they can uncover what’s there. The rats’ nest must be enormous.”

The Royal Borough had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.