FEARS over Mad Cow-diseased animals buried in Burnley were highlighted by councillors.

More than 25 headless carcasses of cattle slaughtered after contracting BSE were dumped five years ago under 10ft of rubble at Rowley tip, close to the River Brun.

Last night, Coun Marcus Johnstone said that despite past calls for them to be removed and incinerated, they were "still a cause for concern".

And public protection committee chairman Ken McGeorge said that despite official assurances, there were concerns over liquids from the diseased beasts reaching the river and perhaps finding their way into the food chain.

Angry councillors slammed Government policies for causing the worldwide British beef crisis and called for urgent action to ensure BSE did not enter food supplies.

Coun Peter Kenyon said: "We have a major crisis confronting this country but we have a Government completely paralysed and incompetent to deal with it. He added that ministers had ignored the advice of scientists and rubbished the views of experts like Burnley General hospital microbiologist Stephen Dealler, who had warned about the dangers.

The Government, he said, had taken a short-sighted view purely in the interests of profit.

Council leader Kath Reade said the crisis had been precipitated by forced feeding of animals in a way which now seemed criminally insane.

It summed up completely the attitude of the Government which believed money was king, even above public health.

News that diseased animals were being secretly dumped at Rowley tip and at Whinney Hill tip in Altham caused widespread concern in 1990.

The burials stopped soon afterwards and Lancashire county chiefs gave an undertaking that the infected animals would, in future, be incinerated.

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