Defra secretary assures culls will go ahead in England next year

Owen Paterson, Defra Secretary, has assured farmers that pilot badger culls planned to take place in England next year will go ahead. He said it was ‘really disappointing’ to have had to announce last week that the culls would not be going ahead in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset this autumn.

Mr Paterson visited Thraptson livestock market, in Northamptonshire, on Thursday morning (November 1) where he met a sceptical audience. As part of a plan to tighten the rules surrounding TB, Northamptonshire will be among the counties that will move from four-yearly to annual TB testing in January.

Farmers were largely unconvinced. During a lengthy exchange Patrick Mould, a local suckler producer, told the Defra Secretary the move to yearly testing would 'inancially strangle' his business, lumbering him with additional costs of testing and the risk of being shut down through an 'inconclusive’ test result. However, Mr Paterson insisted the Government was ‘absolutely trying to get on top of the disease’.

The decision to delay the culls had been made after the NFU requested the policy was put on hold after new survey figures were released estimating there are around 3,600 badgers in the West Gloucestershire area, and 4,300 in the West Somerset area. These results were double the number originally estimated in the West Gloucestershire area and about 60 per cent above the original West Somerset estimate.

Mr Paterson commented: “We will go ahead with the policy, I can absolutely guarantee, next summer. From that I would like to see this policy rolled out because at the moment it is the only tool we have to resolve the problem in wildlife.”