Hopes Defra will announce foot-and-mouth relaxations

The Core Stakeholder which has been formulating foot-and-mouth policy has been reviewing a case for the removal of counties like Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and West Sussex from the zone.

It follows an epidemiological report on Friday saying it was very unlikely that foot-and-mouth had spread out of the localised area in Surrey where the eight outbreaks have occurred so far.

It is unlikely however that counties like Hampshire and Berkshire will be released yet because of their proximity to the outbreaks in Surrey.