Foot-and-mouth out break confirmed

A nationwide movement ban on cattle, sheep, pigs and other susceptible animals was imposed after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced initial tests on animals on farmland near Egham showed they had the virus.

Protection and surveillance zones were set up around the outbreak and cattle were culled as a precaution after displaying symptoms of the highly infectious disease. Animals on a farm adjacent to the land in Surrey were also being slaughtered "on suspicion" of infection, Defra said.

But there was confusion in the area around the affected farm, with local farmers angry they had not been informed by Defra about the outbreak.

And farming leaders described the latest case of foot and mouth as a "hammer-blow" to the industry, coming just days after the UK was given the all-clear following the outbreak in August.

Having declared the country free of the disease last week, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the latest discovery was "news that nobody wanted to hear".

The latest incidence of the disease is around 10 miles from the two previous cases near Pirbright, which are thought to have been caused by a leak from laboratories there.

The area at the centre of the outbreak is grazing land attached to Milton Park farm, Surrey Council confirmed. The animals on the land were owned by another farm, Hardwick Park farm, head of trading standards Peter Denard said.

Chief vet Debby Reynolds said the strain of the virus and its origin had not yet been identified. But National Farmers' Union president Peter Kendall said the chances it was from a different source or a different strain to the previous outbreak were "incredibly small".

Mr Kendall said the latest case would have "enormous" ramifications for the whole of the farming community. "At the weekend the whole industry breathed a collective sigh of relief that we had moved on. This has set us right back," he said.