After much research I found two DEFRA articles on how to get rid of moles.

One examines just about every trick used across europe including old wives
tales...
http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-cou...ole-review.pdf

and this DEFRA guide
http://www.defra.gov.uk/rds/publicat...cal/tan_03.pdf

In brief it seems the only two ways that work (or are allowed) are trapping
and gassing with aluminium phosphide.

So I ordered ten traps and set six yesterday - three scissor and three
barrel. I like the barrel trap as it's easy to cover without soil falling
into the tunnel. Overnight one barrel trap caught a mole so I reset it.. Two
hours later after cutting the lawn I noticed the same trap had sprung again
and yes there was another mole in it!