A town centre church where dozens of rats were seen running around last week has spoken out to urge people not to leave litter or feed the pigeons. 

A video that was taken at around 8.50am on Wednesday morning, sparking horror on social media late last week, showed huge rats running around the All Saints churchyard in Church Street. 

High Wycombe resident Jermaine Joven, who took the video, said there must have been around 60 of the rodents there before he started filming and some of them got spooked. 

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All Saints Parish Church says it is working with a pest controller and other local businesses to tackle the problem. 

They added: "Unfortunately feeding the pigeons and leaving litter lying around adds to the problem so we’d be very grateful if visitors could refrain from doing this."

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After concerns were raised on Facebook, All Saints reassured residents they would be working to resolve the problem "in as humane a way as possible". 

Rats have been a big problem in High Wycombe town centre, with litter and fast food waste from nearby restaurants said to be encouraging them to thrive in the area. 

Cllr Darren Hayday said the council is aware of the problem and is working on measures to control the population.