DURING a constituency visit recently, South West MEP Giles Chichester met with campaigners at the controversial Ash Moor burial pit near Petrockstowe.
Members of STAMP — Stop the Ash Moor Pit — claim that MAFF (now DEFRA) has infringed landfill and waste management regulations at the site.
Despite a previous assurance that the pit would be a 'Devon solution to a Devon problem' campaigners have been told it could be used for the disposal of animals anywhere in the UK if there is a sudden increase in carcasses.
They have raised fears over the potential health and environmental implications if the £7.5 million pit, which was earmarked to take 400,000 carcasses, is ever used and are calling for the site to be reinstated.
STAMP member Joe Skinner said Mr Chichester was presented with a solicitor's letter which he would be taking to the European Parliament in Brussels — it accuses MAFF of a number of things including not complying with the normal planning procedures and breaching the ground water directive.
Campaigners have been angered by an announcement from new agriculture minister Margaret Beckett that existing burial sites could be used as part of a contingency plan to deal with foot and mouth.
'The Government is proposing to keep this as a contingency for the future and again it contradicts what we were previously told that it would be specifically for this outbreak,' said Mr Skinner.
He added that in a report by the Department of Health the option of mass burial for the disposal of carcasses was at the bottom of the list.
'Mass burial is totally unsuitable from the point of view of local residents, environmental and health hazards,' he said.