THE huge cost of building the controversial Ash Moor burial pit near Petrockstowe has been highlighted in a report into last year's foot and mouth crisis, published by the National Audit Office.
The report revealed the crisis resulted in vast increases in government costs for buying in goods and services and meant DEFRA paid 'a high mark-up for some of the land on which to build mass burial pits'.
The NAO said: 'For the Ash Moor pit in Devon, the department paid £350,000 for the land, which it estimated to be about three-and-a-half times the usual rate.'
Ash Moor, built to take 400,000 animal carcasses, was never used but cost £5.8-million to construct and some £1.2-million for maintenance and eventual restoration.
The NAO report said: 'The department overestimated the number of carcasses that needed to be disposed of for mass burial.
'This was partly because when decisions to build mass burial sites were taken, the outbreak's course and availability of other disposal routes remained uncertain.
'With hindsight, the decline in daily confirmed cases turned out to be sharper than the department had prepared for.
'Ash Moor was never used because a flare up of this disease on Dartmoor, which the department feared, did not occur.'