ONE of Cumbria’s senior politicians says the county is not prepared should another devastating foot-and-mouth crisis strike.
Cumbria County Council leader Stewart Young spoke of his concerns, 20 years to the day since the start of the crisis that brought the county’s farming community to its knees.
In 2001, it ravaged the Cumbrian countryside for seven long months, and cost the county an estimated £230m – one third of the money garnered annually from tourism – as well as the loss of 7,000 of the 47,000 jobs in the tourism sector.
More than 1.3m animals were destroyed in the county alone, with the Army called in to help. By the end of the outbreak, a total of 893 county premises were infected and 3,500 farms lost all or some of their stock.