The owners of Whitchurch's Alderford Lake say they took swift action to remove mole traps after two were found by members of the public.

Rob Bebbington was made aware of the traps, which had come to the surface, by a lady walking her dog and young daughter.

And he insists finding the traps was a one-off incident as they are usually buried below the ground and may have been dug up up after being set by fully-qualified professionals.

"We think this is a one-off and won't happen again," he said. "Everything we do with the cafe and outside to do with pest-control, we use registered people and they're working to high standards.

"We have copies of their public liability insurance. Everything they do goes through our health and safety and we use National Farmers Union Risk Management too. We spend thousands a year of insurance to make customers are safe, with the activities we have such as Bonfire Night.

"They have to be in place, but we do sub-contract that out. We are a private site – not a council site – that we open to the public and with that, we try to maintain standards throughout.

"Mole trapping is part of that. We never get all of them and when you're running mowers over the ground, there's damage that's caused by stones and soil. We can't run an 11-foot mower around mole hills."

Mr Bebbington insist trapping mole sis the best way to keep his site free of any potential issues as well as maintaining its own high standards.

He added: "I and other people think trapping moles is the safest way; we don't use gas.

"The traps have been in since November and we've never had anyone hand one in before. That's why we use them.

"After this incident, we removed them all and made sure there was nothing on site and was done on the same afternoon the lady handed the traps to me."

"If anyone sees anything, we do encourage them to come to us. We work closely with the Wildlife Trust and they're envious of how we're able to manage this site as we do because they have many where they can't do anything.

"There would be a lot of people disappointed if we didn't do the maintenance. You can't just watch a lot of moles destroy a nice lawned area outside your cafe."