A PUBLIC body is being urged to allow badger vaccinations to restart in Cheshire after campaigners demanded ‘real action now’ to tackle bovine TB (bTB) without culling.

Wounded Badger Patrol Cheshire protested outside Sandbach Town Hall last Thursday ahead of Cheshire East Council’s meeting – calling on the authority to do more to protect badgers and support farmers.

Jane Smith, coordinator for Wounded Badger Patrol, told councillors that they should promote badger vaccination programmes in the borough – which are free of charge for farmers and landowners.

But Natural England has stopped taking on applications for badger vaccination licences while it conducts a review into the practice.

“We want to see real action now from CEC for badgers and also for famers,” Ms Smith said.

“This is the third year of the cull here in Cheshire and thousands of Cheshire badgers have died to date – but for what?

“Bovine TB isn’t being eradicated in any of the cull zones across the country. Culling will never help farmers – badger vaccination will.”

Volunteers from the Cheshire Badger Vaccination Programme – which is supported by Cheshire Wildlife Trust and match-funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – offer free vaccinations for farmers in Cheshire.

CEC also ran a badger vaccination scheme at Tatton Park in June – training six volunteers and vaccinating 31 badgers.

Cllr Sam Corcoran, CEC’s Labour leader, told Ms Smith that he supports vaccination – but that the council has been scuppered by Natural England’s decision to stop allowing new vaccination schemes.

Knutsford Guardian:

He said: “Culling is not the answer and I do believe that vaccination does play an important part of the answer.

“However, shockingly, Natural England have stopped issuing new permissions for vaccination in Cheshire East.

“I think that’s a disgrace, and I would hope that everybody would campaign for Natural England to revisit that decision and revisit it urgently.”

Natural England is set to review its policy on badger vaccination licences and announce any changes by May 2020.

A spokesman for Natural England said: “We are undertaking a review into how we licence badger vaccination to ensure we have a robust, simplified system in place which helps to deliver the Government’s bovine TB strategy.

“To allow time for the review we have paused processing all new licence applications and requests to register additional vaccination sites.

“We will continue to keep licence holders informed as we progress through our review and look forward to supporting their vaccination programmes in 2020.”

Meanwhile, Wounded Badger Patrol also wants to see CEC step up efforts to stop badger culling taking place on land it leases out to tenant farmers.

READ > Dog walkers 'up in arms' over stakes to stop grass verge parking

Ms Smith said it is ‘just not good enough’ for the council to suggest it will amend lease agreements when they are up for renewal to stop culling taking place as the tenancies can last 15 to 20 years.

Cllr Corcoran said: “I am determined that we should go as far as we can within the law on this matter – and we can’t in law unilaterally change a lease agreement that is part-way through its term.

“We would have to do it with the consent of the farmer or change the lease agreement when it comes to the end of its term.”