Eppynt protestors lobby Assembly

11 April 2001



Eppynt protestors lobby Assembly

By Robert Davies, Wales correspondent

PROTESTORS opposed to the disposal of livestock killed under foot-and-mouth controls are set to lobby politicians in Cardiff on Wednesday (11 April).

They will present evidence of fluids leaking from lorries carrying carcasses, and geological data indicating a high health risk from seepage into rivers.

The protestors believe the disposal of the carcasses on the Eppynt military range threatens the river Towy, which flows through disease-free Carmarthenshire.

They will lobby the Welsh Assemblys agricultural committee, which has been recalled from the Easter recess to discuss the growing foot-and-mouth crisis.

Meanwhile, Welsh rural affairs minister Carwyn Jones was due to join Hugh Richards, president of the National Farmers Union Cymru-Wales.

The two men were set to sample Peoples Unity Bitter, a beer which is being launched to raise funds to help farming and rural communities.

For each cask sold, the Peoples Pub Company has pledged 10p to emergency funds raised by the NFU and Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution.

It will also donate half of any profits it makes from selling the special brew. The money raised is expected to be matched funded by the government.

Another brewer, Simon Buckley of Tomos Watkin Brewery, Swansea, has attacked government claims that the countryside is open for business.

“The claims are deeply insulting and untruthful,” says Mr Buckley. “Councils are dithering, footpaths are closed, and access to beaches is closed.

He added: “What is open is blighted by appalling media images of the carnage this awful disease has caused to rural life in the UK and Wales.”