Rats are emerging from sewers and infesting people's gardens, according to Thornbury residents.

Despite the efforts of Bradford Council pest control officers who have put down poison to trap the vermin, residents claim the rats are still at large in the area.

And they say the problem could have been caused by a £3 million sewage improvement scheme being carried out by Yorkshire Water on Dick Lane, which will not be finished until November.

Resident Dorothy Pillenger, 67, and her husband Ivan, 75, of Rowan Avenue, said she mistook a rat for a squirrel when she spotted it eating off her bird table.

"I was absolutely terrified when I realised what it was. I nearly had a heart attack," she said.

"There's a big problem here in Thornbury. I've lived here for 40 years and I've never seen a rat before all this sewage work began."

Neighbour Sharon Watts said she was also worried by the problem.

"One of the rats I saw was big enough to turn my outside sensor light on. I though it was a cat working through my garden."

And resident Duncan Watts, of Dick Lane, said he'd seen dead rats lying in the garden and on a pavement near Thornbury roundabout.

Although Bradford Council pest control officers have regularly put down bait over the past six weeks, residents say the problem is still as bad.

A spokesman from Yorkshire Water said there was an inevitable danger that when carrying out major sewage work, the rat population in the area would be disturbed.

The spokesman said: "Yorkshire Water does bait its sewers in order to catch vermin and when we get a specific complaint we will divert our efforts to establish whether the rats are coming from the sewage system concerned."

A Bradford Council pest control spokesman said: "We have placed blocks of poison on request in people's gardens of houses in neighbouring streets.

"The former GEC building, which was nearby, has been pulled down and any demolition or building work can often disturb rats. It is possible that people who have reported sightings are seeing the same rat.

"Rats do occasionally come to the surface, but there has been no increase in complaints about them over the past 12 months."

The sightings come just days after Bradford mother Anne Light was confronted by rats in a subway leading to the city centre's National Museum of Photography, Film and Television.

Bradford Council's public health sub committee chairman Councillor Marilyn Beeley called for an investigation into the sighting.

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