WEST Devon's MP and the South West NFU director have slammed the Government's policies regarding disposal of animals culled due to the foot and mouth crisis.

More than 336,000 animals have been slaughtered in Devon so far — yet thousands of carcasses have yet to be disposed of.

West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett said the crisis had been 'grossly mismanaged', with the Government reacting 'extremely slowly' to the situation.

Mr Burnett said: 'If you embark on a slaughter policy you must slaughter affected stock within 12-15 hours. The Danes and Dutch did this and contained their outbreaks to about 32 — and they farm far more intensively than we do.'

He said the strain of the virus, different to the last serious outbreak in the 1967, was not diagnosed quickly enough either.

Mr Burnett continued: 'We should have vaccination with compensation as a fire-break, instead of contiguous culling. There is no problem to human health with milk or meat from vaccinated stock and the supermarkets have said they would sell it.

'I would have liked to have seen as much rendering as possible — I would also have preferred burial on farms, but the Environment Agency won't permit it.'

Mr Burnett said it was unfair to be left with the 'invidious' option of mass burial, purely as a result of the 'incompetent' way the Government had handled the crisis.

Anthony Gibson, the NFU's South West regional director, said the situation was 'medieval in its awfulness'.

He said: 'The Environment Agency told the Prime Minister it would give decisions about farm burial sites — by far the best means of disposal — within three hours. But it appears that decision is virtually always "No".'

He called for the agency to 'face facts' and be more flexible.

'At the end of the day which is the lesser evil? Banning on-farm burials may prevent some small or theoretical risk of pollution but leaving huge numbers of carcasses to putrify where they fall must surely represent a far higher risk to the environment and health, not to mention the emotional trauma it is causing.'

Pyres were lit at several Devon farms during the week, including Meldon and a huge bonfire of 4,000 carcasses at Arscott Farm near Holsworthy.