Urban Fox

Foxes are not legally considered a pest and there is no requirement on councils to deal with them.

Controlling foxes is very difficult, expensive and killing them does not solve the problem.  In the past a number of local authorities in London and Bristol have tried this. The studies show that killing them is not effective, as new foxes move in to take over the territory which has been made vacant by the killed fox. The conclusion of the study was that the culling of foxes made absolutely no difference to the overall fox population.

The best thing to do is to deter them by convincing them that they are in another foxes' territory. There are products you can buy from garden centres or online that do this. It is advisable to make sure that there is nothing in the gardens that would attract them for example, heavy undergrowth and food left out for pets or birds.

There is a website call the fox project http://foxproject.org.uk/deterrence/ that offers advice