Black said the UK’s borders must be made more secure to prevent animal diseases entering the country.
The senior director at Paragon Veterinary Group in Carlisle and Penrith was a young vet during the outbreak quarter of a century ago.
He described Cumbria as a “completely devastated county” and said his veterinary practice lost 85% of the animals it was looking after at the time.
“We don’t have enough resource within the state veterinary services, we don’t have enough contact between the state veterinary services and private vets,” he said, describing his reasons for why he thought the country was “under resourced” for another potential outbreak.
With the new cases of the disease found in Europe, external, Black said he was “terrified” about the impact of proposed closer economic ties to the EU, which could increase freedom of trade between Britain and the continent.
The National Farmers Union’s North regional director Adam Briggs was also concerned about the movement of cattle, in particularly imports of illegal meat.
He said: “That poses a bigger risk because that’s not going through any regulatory checks.
“You’ve got no idea where it [the meat] comes from.”
