Updated 19th June 2024: Glue Trap licensing applications now open via Natural England
Following on from the new glue trap licence regime announced by Natural England and Defra in May, the Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022 will come into effect on
31 July 2024.
Natural England have been appointed as the licensing authority and pest controllers will be able to apply for a licence from 19 June 2024.
Only professional pest controllers involved in rodent control management will be able to hold a licence for glue trapping. A professional pest controller is someone who provides a pest control service for a public authority or as part of a business. To demonstrate this, applicants will need to have completed both the following courses and will need to provide evidence of these with the licence application:
• RSPH Level 2 Award in pest management
• Killgerm principles in the use of rodent glue traps under licence (2024 version)
The Killgerm principles in the use of rodent glue traps under licence course is designed for Pest Control Technicians with prior approved training and certificates in rodent control who wish to register / apply for a licence for use of rodent glue traps.
Licences will only be issued for exceptional circumstances, and where all alternative methods of rodent control are ineffective or impractical.
Update
1. Food manufacturing facilities should include national and regional distributors.
2. The licensing regime considers “exceptional circumstances” to be instances where there is a large-scale risk to public health and safety, for example: sites accommodating large numbers of vulnerable people (hospitals), food manufacturing facilities, and laboratories where contamination risk has nationally significant impacts. Minister Pow has acknowledged that there may be a very low number of exceptional occasions where a pub, restaurant, supermarket, or hotel is faced with an infestation, caused, say, by major building works taking place adjacent to the premises, that puts public health at risk. In these very rare instances, the licensing regime should allow for pest controllers to apply for an individual licence, to be considered on a case-by-case basis. This to ensure that the situation is genuinely an exceptional circumstance and that there is no satisfactory alternative. These circumstances will not be added to the Class licence.
