Fire destroys North Devon Meat plant
Fire destroys North Devon Meat plant
FIRE has completely destroyed St Merryn Meats North Devon Meat plant at Torrington on Sunday removing at a stroke the main abattoir for cattle and pigs from Devons infected area.
St Merryn Meat is hoping it will be allowed to use its Bodmin abattoir to replace North Devon Meats throughput for the time being at least. That could be achieved either by MAFF moving the boundary of the infected area about a mile so that it included the Bodmin plant, or by changing the rules so that animals could be taken from the Devon infected area to Bodmin even though it is in a "clean" area.
A MAFF spokesman said possible solutions were being discussed in London.
It is still not known how the fire was started. Initially it was being treated as suspicious because a bomb alert had been sent to their Bodmin plant.
Over 200 people were employed by North Devon Meat. Some have been offered work at the companys other plants.
As FW went to press on Wednesday, St Merryn Meat would not confirm that it intended to build a new plant at Torrington. *