Flood ravaged homes across England have a new threat to contend with: a plague of mutant ‘super’ rats.

Hordes of the brown rats have escaped flooded drains across the south of England after storms unleashed torrential downpours on vast swathes of the country.

The rats are resistant to normal poisons and can transmit life-threatening diseases to humans and farm animals.

A study by University of Reading’s Rodenticide Resistance Action Group involving testing the tails of hundreds of rats killed in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, found that many of the rodents were resistant to common forms of poison used by local authorities and professional pest controllers, farmers and gamekeepers.

Other EU countries allow the use of potent poisons, brodifacoum and flocoumafen outside. But in the UK fears over the effect the poisons will have on other wildlife, including owls who feed on rats, has prompted widespread studies by experts.

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