A council leader has declared war on seagulls with a plea for the public to cut off their food supply.

Ken Bodfish, leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, described the birds as a menace responsible for scattering rubbish along streets.

In an echo of London mayor Ken Livingstone's campaign against pigeons, the Labour councillor said: "Seagulls are rats with wings and I would urge residents to join a campaign to stop people feeding them."

Coun Bodfish stopped short of demanding a cull of the sea birds and said it was up to Brighton and Hove residents to stop feeding them and dispose of their rubbish carefully in tough black sacks or wheelie bins.

He said: "We live in a seaside city and seagulls have got a place. But there are too many of them colonising residential areas. I hope people stop feeding them. It's inexcusable."

Coun Bodfish, who said his partner had been attacked by seagulls, added: "They are a menace. Seagulls kill ducklings in parks and frighten off small birds and make a complete mess of the streets.

"Their population is growing so we have to be sensible about how we dispose of our rubbish. Every household should be responsible."

He added that a major source of seagull food was trade waste put out by restaurants and other food outlets.

Adrian Thomas, spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said the overall population of seagulls had fallen by 40 per cent in the last 25 years.

The herring gull, which makes up 99 per cent of seabirds in Brighton and Hove, has even been placed on an amber list of threatened birds.

But while the numbers living on clifftops and the sea has dropped, the number of birds breeding inland has shot up.

A survey in 1971 found there were no seagulls at all nesting on rooftops in Brighton and Hove. By 2001 there were 235 pairs in Brighton and 261 in Hove and Portslade. Mr Thomas said the numbers were still rising.

He said: "Towns and cities are effectively providing them with their two basic needs - safe nesting sites and a sustainable food supply. We give that to them so we are responsible for creating the conditions they need to thrive."

The gulls, which live for up to 20 years and have wingspans of up to 5ft, have become accustomed to living among humans and Mr Thomas said a cull would be useless in the long term as new waves of birds would replace them.

Instead the solution should be to ensure that their food supply in the city was cut off. That way they would instinctively move away from residential areas and back out to sea.