Cattle culled in latest UK foot-and-mouth outbreak

Cattle are being slaughtered today at a Surrey farm where tests showed the animals had succumbed to the foot and mouth outbreak that currently blights the country.

David and Coral Sheldrake are thought to have a small herd of pure-bred West Sussex cattle at the Beaumont College farm in Old Windsor.

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ official at the farm today said the couple were too upset to speak about the loss of their herd.

“There are some very upset people in there at the moment,” he said.

The cattle were tested for the disease after they showed symptoms following three recent outbreaks in the Egham area just a few miles away.

Defra said that about 40 cows had tested positive and a cull which began last night was continuing today.

The farm is within the 3km protection zone set up after the latest cases emerged.

The latest outbreak brings the total of confirmed cases of foot and mouth in Surrey to six since the first case in Normandy at the beginning of August.

A number of sites outside Surrey have also been investigated and several control zones set up but these have all proved to be false alarms.

The farm at the centre of the sixth case uses the National Trust’s Runnymede estate to graze their cows. Footpaths crossing the popular beauty spot have been closed since August, say locals, but the disease still spread.

Beaumont College Farm is the only agricultural premises in the rural, but moneyed, stretch of countryside between Staines and Windsor town centres.