Protesters meet over burning row

More sheep will be taken to abattoirs for slaughter

Protesters who halted the burning of the first of 40,000 sheep carcasses on Anglesey are meeting with Welsh Assembly officials.

A large group of residents staged an all-night vigil at the disused Mona airfield on Wednesday night after successfully turning back a lorry carrying more bodies for destruction.

Crisis in the UK

49 new cases on UK-wide on Wednesday

Total confirmed cases 742 - 42 in Wales

764,319 animals due for slaughter

481,909 already slaughtered

346,998 carcasses destroyed

They have warned they will not move until they speak to the island's MP Ieuan Wyn Jones for talks about plans to burn 40,000 caracasses at the site.

Health fears have exacerbated the situation with the Environment Agency warningthat air quality down wind of the burning pyres is likely to be very poor.

It recommends that people should not stay within two kilometres of the centre of the pyre for any significant length of time.

Of Wales's 42 confirmed cases, 13 are on the island of Anglesey.

The slaughter - similar to action being carried out in Cumbria - was ordered to create a firebreak to halt the further spread of the disease.

Ron Davies AM: Vaccination campaign

Meanwhile in Powys - where 25 cases have been confirmed - preparations for a second mass cull are underway.

But farmers have said they intend to fight plans to dispose of the carcasses on an army range in an unaffected area.

On Wednesday the Anglesey protesters were given an undertaking that no more carcasses will be brought to the site until after a meeting with assembly staff.

That meeting began in Bodffordd at 1000GMT on Thursday.

Click here to see 1967 foot-and-mouth figures compared to 2001 figures.

Officials had set out to allay local fears that the burning poses public health or environmental risks, or that it could help spread foot-and-mouth further across the island.

Agriculture Minister Carwyn Jones has pleaded with the protesters to allow the burning to continue.

"Just let us get on and finish the job," he said.

"We want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.There is no threat to human health or animal health.

The sheer scale of the slaughter is placing a strain on resources. Vaccination has a real role to play.

Ron Davies AM, former Labour agriculture spokesman

"Clearly there will be unpleasantness and it will be a nuisance for a time, but think about the farmers - think about what they are losing."

Landowners in Powys have been told that the cull in their area will be confined to affected farms and those bordering them.

Individual farms will be exempted if they are protected by natural barriers like rivers.

Thousands of animals are expected to be killed over the next few days but, unlike on Anglesey, the carcasses will be buried.

Two possible sites have been identified on the Army's Eppynt training range - closed by the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

A total of 13 farms on Anglesey are contaminated

Objections have been raised by the Farmers' Union of Wales which has said the range is widely used as common grazing land.

A spokesman said it would be "utter madness" to bring animals into an area which is so far completely unaffected by foot and mouth.

The assembly has yet to confirm the sites earmarked, but it is understood that one under consideration is near Llandeilo'r Fan, and the other is an old military airstrip further west.

Meanwhile, opposition to mass slaughter is growing, with increasing calls for vaccination programme to help control the disease.

Caerphilly AM Ron Davies - a former Labour spokesman on agriculture - is urging the assembly to push for vaccination as a method of control.

He wants it to put pressure on UK Agriculture Minister Nick Brown to consider using vaccination as an additional weapon in the fight against foot-and-mouth.

Mass vaccination

Speaking on BBC Wales's Good Morning Wales, he said: "The sheer scale of the slaughter is placing a strain on resources.

"If the spread of the disease continues, then vaccination has a real role to play."

Fellow AM and Anglesey farmer Peter Rogers agreed and said that the mood among farmers had shifted towards masss vaccination.

"The cull is too late, Carwyn Jones has only got one option left and that is a vaccination scheme," he said.

But Mr Jones has so far dismissed the vaccination idea.

"All that vaccination does is to buy you time," he said. "The animals would still have to be culled. The veterinary advice is that what we are doing now is the best way forward."

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