Rats have been spotted in residential streets yards from a stretch of the M6 through the Black Country and just days after excavation work began to widen the carriageways.

Families living in Beechdale, Walsall, say the vermin have been invading their homes since the project started to open up the hard shoulder during peak times. It is the latest in a string of complaints from people living in streets near the roadworks between junctions 8 and 10. Some fear the work has forced the rodents from their nests.

But the Highways Agency today said the rise was more likely down to rubbish dumped near the site.

Railway signalman James Sargent, of Crompton Close, said “I think we need the Pied Piper down here to be honest.”

He and wife Tracey and daughters Gabrielle, aged 16, and eight-month-old Francesca live just feet from fencing alongside the motorway.

Mr Sargent, aged 37, said: “My two cats think it’s Christmas come early, but it’s not very nice having them bringing three or four dead rats into the house every day.

“They carry all kinds of diseases and I’m worried about the risk to my daughters, especially with one of them only eight months old.”

He said the issue added to problems over noisy roadworks which disturbed their sleep and which got worse after trees shielding homes from the motorway were felled.

Driver and father-of-one Mark Holland, aged 40, of Murdock Way, said: “Hand on heart I can say we never had these problems before the work started.”

The £150 million Active Traffic Management scheme is a three-year project to open up the hard shoulder by 2012.

Highways Agency spokesman Anthony Aston said: “Although a resident has voiced concerns regarding rats we are not aware of a specific vermin problem at Murdock Way.

“We are aware that refuse and garden waste has been deposited on the embankment adjacent to the fence line and that this can attract vermin.”