Dead pigeons have been found impaled on spikes in the underpass at Orpington train station.

Graham Price discovered the dead birds on April 20 – and says he “had never seen anything like it before”.

In what he described as “inhumane”, he reported the incident to the RSPCA and the police’s wildlife crime unit.

The public underpass runs from the end of Station Approach Road to the Network Rail Depot Access Road.

A spokesperson for Network Rail, the company responsible for the underpass’s maintenance, said they “were upset to hear about the pigeon deaths” and think “the birds may have got tangled in them due to the restricted space.”

The spikes, which the company says is a standard product used across the country, were supposed to act as a deterrent rather than physically harming the birds.

Network Rail is “currently looking at what we can do to pigeon proof the underpass in a different way.”

Graham, 56, told The News Shopper: “They are killing themselves on the spikes which must be some kind of offence.

“Or the other option is that these pigeons have been killed and put there, which is a bit harder to credit because you would need a ladder.

“It’s really unusual, I have never seen anything like it before and I haven’t seen any dead pigeons since then either.

“You can’t just go round killing pigeons, if they were to be destroyed humanely that’s one thing but they have been up there forever.”

Graham explained that the RSPCA sent someone down to investigate and recover the birds from the spikes.

The News Shopper contacted the RSPCA for comment.

A spokesperson for Network Rail said: “We were upset to hear about the pigeon deaths at Orpington and are removing the bird proofing from the underpass.

“There was nothing unusual about the spikes installed, they were a standard product used across the country in all sorts of locations.

“They are supposed to act as a deterrent without harming the creatures, but we think the birds may have got tangled in them due to the restricted space there.

“We’re currently looking at what we can do to pigeon proof the underpass in a different way, potentially installing a mesh across the alcoves or possibly bricking up the arches to remove ledges for nesting.

“It does need to be done, however, as pigeons leave unhygienic and unsightly mess everywhere and don’t improve people’s journeys to the station.”

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