Airbase prepared for mass cull

Preparations are under way in Cumbria for the mass cull of animals near foot-and-mouth infected areas.

A disused airbase at Great Orton near Carlisle, has been approved as a site to slaughter and bury hundreds of thousands of sheep.

Diggers are preparing a pit which will have the capacity to hold at least 200,000 sheep carcasses.

Jane Brown, director of operations for the Ministry of Agriculture, said: "The plan is that as soon as the pit is ready we will use it to bury some of the bodies that have already been slaughtered on farms that we haven't been able to dispose of.

"Then we will begin bringing live sheep here from around the edges of the very infected areas around Penrith."

Ms Brown said those animals would be slaughtered on site by licensed slaughter men then buried.

Already 250,000 sheep have been earmarked for slaughter around Penrith.

The Environment Agency is assessing the suitability of a second area for slaughtering and burying sheep.

Ms Brown admitted it was a huge task: "It's a large job, that's why we need the army, they are experts in logistics."

She added: "We're trying to do two things, one is to catch up with the backlog, and the other is to begin creating the firebreak that the Prime Minister has talked about to prevent the disease spreading to the Lakeland Fells."