Villagers voice fears over foot and mouth plans

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman Mike Tas said it was unfortunate that plans to prepare the Cliviger site for "dangerous contact" sheep and pigs burials became public knowledge before the ministry had time to launch a public communications exercise.

In a letter to Burnley MP Peter Pike he adds: "We do not expect this to be popular with any community but there is no intention to shy away from the business of entering into dialogue."

News that the Shanks Waste Disposal site at Deerplay was being prepared for carcass burials has alarmed villagers in Cliviger who fear it could bring the disease to the local farming community.

In his letter, Mr Tas says the Department had become increasingly nervous about the outbreak of the disease in the Settle/Clitheroe cluster and was even more alarmed by an outbreak in Wigan.

He said there were also problems in the Thirsk area and continuation of the outbreak in Cumbria.

"Faced with this position and with fixed rendering capacity and declining ability to access either mass burial sites or landfill in the North and Midlands and with the cessation of field incineration at Catterick, we decided to develop some contingency plans for the Autumn."

He says the fact that Shanks had been asked to prepare the site did not imply the site would be called on immediately or at all. "But we needed and still need to arrange for a number of sites to be in the state of readiness for a possible upsurge in disease in the Autumn." Mr Tas adds: "I must stress that if we get an upsurge in the disease which exceeds our rendering capacity, we may have little option but to use landfill.

"Unpopular as it may be, landfill is our only solution."

Villagers in Cliviger say they are unconvinced by assurances that any burials are entirely safe and say they will continue to oppose the Department's contingency plan to use Deerplay.