CAMPAIGNERS admit this week there is a long fight ahead to get three stretches of open road on Dartmoor fenced off, to prevent the continuous carnage of farm livestock.

Members of the Dartmoor Livestock Protection Society at a meeting last weekend agreed unanimously to carry on the battle to fence the Yelverton to Princetown B3212, a stretch of road at Merrivale and a third close to the Warren Inn in the heart of the National Park.

Secretary Ann Anderson said the Society was prepared to push hard to get their fencing plans through.

'It will be a long fight but we will fight to the best of our ability,' she told the Times.

'It is the only way forward.'

She blamed commuters who have bought property on the moor — and the recently published DLPS annual report has backed up her comments.

It revealed that road casualties were still happening, adding weight to the theory that it was not visitors who drive too fast, as there had been few about during the foot and mouth outbreak this year.

Mrs Anderson said: 'These roads are no longer country lanes but main roads carrying lots of traffic. However, there are idiots out there who drive far too fast.

'People must remember #Blackdown and the lengthy campaign to get that stretch fenced. Now it doesn't look bad and nearly everyone I speak to agrees it is far better than having a lot of dead animals all over the place.'

But Mrs Anderson admitted the society could face possible opposition on road fencing.

After the the death of two ponies killed in early October within two days of each other on a notoriously bad stretch of the B3212, Dartmoor Livestock Protection Society received a letter from a witness to one of the accidents, part of which was printed in its report.

'. . . yet another pony had been struck down and left by the driver. . . it had both its back legs broken, the bone hanging out of one of them, it was still trying to get away from its terrible ordeal . . . so why are we prepared to allow this carnage to keep happening?

'Why? Because we must not spoil the look of Dartmoor by erecting a fence or putting traffic calming controls in the road to stop the mindless idiots who think the Yelverton to Princetown road is a race track. '

Mike Nendick of Dartmoor National Park said the Authority had sympathy for the animals and their owners, but fencing roads was not the answer.

'Animal accidents are caused by inappropriate driving — what needs to be tackled is the culture of driving in a national park, where animals roam freely,' he said.

He said fencing would 'drastically change' the character of Dartmoor and could also produce different animal welfare problems related to grazing.

He added DNPA is currently undertaking verge clearing to improve roadside visibility, work which was curtailed until recently due to the foot and mouth crisis.