Archived News

Friday 10th August 2007 - 12.15am
We had a call just before midnight on the farming grapevine, that Debby Reynolds, Chief Veterinary Officer was about to issue a statement. We knew it would be of some significance if she was giving a press release at that hour. Well it transpires that they are putting a temporary 3km zone somewhere in Surrey, outside the existing 10km zone.  After a few minutes one TV channel showed a map with a circle indicating an area to the west of Dorking - is this us?  We haven't heard from any officials yet, but imagine that we will discover more in a few hours.

Another night of little sleep. Checked the DEFRA website and the map shows a purple circle over our area.  This is being shown as a temporary control zone and we need to find out whether this makes any changes over and above the Restriction Notice which was served on us yesterday.  Press were at our farm gate at 2am claiming there was a suspected case of FMD at this farm and that the temporary zone had been placed around us.

We have heard nothing from DEFRA since their vet left at 7pm last night.

Laurence spoke to the press this morning in the hope that he could then get on with some work - no chance of that it seems.

As far as we were told by the DEFRA vet yesterday, this is NOT Foot and Mouth Disease.Back