Wednesday, 28 July 2010 00:00
Farming Minister Jim Paice has announced that farmers and environmentalists will be given a say over plans to introduce a badger cull as reported in the Western Morning News on 26 July 2010:
http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/news/Farmers-say-badger-cull/article-2454100-detail/article.html
In the event that you wanted the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to cull badgers to control bovine tuberculosis then the Court of Appeal's decision on The Badger Trust v The Welsh Assembly will have disappointed you.
However, the Solicitors Journal reports on 14 July 2010 that: "The Court of Appeal has comprehensively rejected the Welsh Assembly government's order for a badger cull in Pembrokeshire, but left the door open for future culls in Wales and England."
This is because in this case the Welsh Ministers had passed a statutory instrument allowing badgers to be culled anywhere in Wales. Had the TB Eradication Order 2009 only applied to the cull area then perhaps the Badger Trust's appeal would not have been upheld.
Ian Johnson, the National Farmers' Union Spokesman (NFU) said in the above article in the Western Morning News that: "Apart from Gloucestershire, there's no greater area where bovine TB is 'hotter' than Devon."