On Wednesday, the Brisbane City Council announced it would commit $55,000 in the 2018-19 financial year to subsidise cat desexing.

The commitment is for one financial year but the council’s Lifestyle and Community Services chairman Peter Matic said the council would look to extend it.

The council funding will subsidise the desexing of about 850 cats.

The council received more than 700 complaints about feral cats and captured 800 feral cats in Brisbane in the past year.

All feral animals captured by the council are euthanised.

Animal Welfare League Queensland strategic director Joy Verrinder said the cost of the desexing program was split between the cat owner, vets, council and Animal Welfare League.

“It’s a shared solution, everybody gives a little bit,” Dr Verrinder.

“We really do have an oversupply of cats and kittens which we really need to address in this most ethical way.

“So we’re hoping the Brisbane residents will respond enthusiastically and we’ll be able to prevent a lot of unwanted cats pouring into the Brisbane shelters over the coming years.”

The AWL program has been running for eight years and seven councils are already involved, including six in Queensland and one in New South Wales.

Under the program, the owner would pay $35 to desex a male cat and $55 for a female.

To be eligible for the subsidy the pet owner must be a Brisbane resident and a pensioner or concession card holder or a low-income earner.

In the lead up to the 2016 Brisbane City Council election Greens lord mayoral candidate, Ben Penning made a $6.5 million election commitment, over to years, to desex up to 20,000 Brisbane cats a year free of charge.

When Cr Matic was asked about what he thought of the Green’s policy he said he wasn’t aware of the program the party put forward.

“The important thing ultimately as cat owners is we all have a responsibility to look after our cats,” he said.

Greens councillor Jonathan Sri (The Gabba) said he was “fine” with the LNP taking the idea from the Greens.

“It’s nice to see the council adopting the idea we’ve been pushing for a while,” he said.

“I welcome any steps towards encouraging desexing of cats and I think its an ok start but this is a very small number of cats they are talking about.”

There will be 30 vets participating in the subsidy program. The vets are located in: