NEVER in a million years will anyone in Burnley contract the human form of mad cow disease from the infected beasts buried on the town's Rowley tip, say environmental experts.

And the town may have to wait more than 10,000 million years before a case of direct infection is found, according to an official assessment.

The view is expressed in a letter from Jeff Rooker, minister of state at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the town's MP, Peter Pike.

Mr Rooker was replying to a letter from the MP expressing fears voiced by Burnley councillors who have refused to accept previous assurances about the chance of infection from the tip.

The minister says Environmental Agencies carried out full qualitative assessments of the potentially most dangerous sites, taking into account the number of carcases buried, the degree of containment and the proximity of water sources. The Burnley tip, which received 33 BSE carcases in 1990 - was not included as one of the most vulnerable sites because of the relatively low number of carcases buried there, says Mr Rooker.

He adds: "The study calculations show that the likelihood of the most exposed individual ingesting, in one year, sufficient material to cause infection as a result of the past landfilling that took place, ranges from one in one million years to one in

10,000 million years, depending on local circumstances."

He goes on: "However, in reality, the risk to the general public will be well below the level of risk to the most exposed person."

Now the MP has delivered the correspondence to Burnley council seeking its views.

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