A PUBLIC meeting to discuss the future of the Ash Moor pit will be held in the Baxter Hall, Petrockstowe, at 7pm tomorrow (Friday.)

Representatives from DEFRA and Devon County Council will attend the meeting which follows an agreement on the restoration of the site being reached.

The controversial site was built at the height of the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 to dispose of 400,000 livestock carcasses but it was never used.

Since then local residents have been campaigning for the pit to be turned into an environmental area managed by a conservation group like the Devon Wildlife Trust. Under the new agreement DEFRA will retain ownership of Ash Moor for five years and encourage any future owner to manage it in an appropriate way for culm grassland.