IN THE NEWS
LOUGHTON DRIVER ATWITS’ END AS PESKY FOXES LEAVE HIMWITH £6K VAN REPAIRS BILL
A taxi driver says his street is plagued by a group of foxes which burrow under his minibus at night and chew through the wires and pipes. According to the East London Guar- dian,WilliamChurch, fromLoughton, says the pests could cost himhis job as he has had to spend over £6,000 on fixing the damage they have caused in the last two years. The
64-year-old
thought he may have outsmarted them when he put a sturdy fence up – but
the animals
managed to gnaw through the struc- ture. He said: “I’m at my wits’ end. It’s very stressful. I am con- stantly going to sleep at night won- dering what state my bus will be in the next morning. “It makes me very angry. I just don’t
he added. “It could have cost me or my passenger
our
lives.” On a recent Sunday, another light ap- peared warning him his brake pads were low, and it turned out
foxes had
William Church with cable which has been chewed by foxes
know what to do.” Initially he was con- fused when he first spotted damage to his £60,000 van in 2016, but played back CCTV cameras to find six foxes c o n g r e g a t i n g underneath it. He has contacted E n v i r o nme n t a l Health at Epping Forest
District
Council but claims nothing is being done to help him. Meanwhile, he is constantly forced to fork out more
money to repair the damage caused by the animals. The most serious episode happened five weeks ago when he took a neighbour to Gat- wick Airport at around 2am. As he pulled out a light flashed up say- ing his brake fluid was low – but when he went to replace it discovered foxes had
through the pipes. “Someone
chewed could
have been killed,”
William Church tried to protect his car with a fence - to no avail
chewed through some pipes. Hemanaged to fix it himself with the help of a neighbour but was left £120
out of pocket. Last September he contacted a private contractor from a pest control compa- ny who advised it could cost £1,200 to get rid of the ani- mals. But he fears the issue is because people feed the foxes meaning they keep coming back to cause chaos. He added: “I’ve tried
everything and I just don’t know where to turn.” His wife, Carolyn Church, says foxes regularly wreak havoc on the street – chewing on artifi- cial turf and using the area as a toilet. She said: “Every- body is up in arms. It’s like fox wars here. It’s a shame because it’s a nice little turning.”
6
OCTOBER 2018
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