Action pledge over hunt ban

Hunt masters meeting to discuss the ban on the sport said landowners would be 'bloody minded' when bodies such as utility engineers, council officials or the Army asked for permission to come on their property.

But huntsmen said they would stop short of breaking the law.

About 200 pro-hunting campaigners gathered in Thirsk at the weekend to decide plans for co-ordinated civil disobedience and to receive an update on legal challenges to the ban.

Peter Dennis, farmer and master of the Hurworth Hunt, based at West Rounton, near Northallerton, is planning to refuse access to his land. He said he wanted to make a stand.

John Snaith, chairman of the Zetland Hunt, which hunts around the borders of North Yorkshire and County Durham, added: "We may be a little bloody minded when it comes to people like water and electricity companies getting access to our land. They may find things a little awkward.

"But we intend to keep within the law. It's essential that we keep the public on our side and we keep working with the police."

Mr Snaith said the ban meant the present hunting season would be cut short by about two weeks.

But he said there were no plans at the moment to lay off hunt workers or disband hound packs.

Campaigners said the aim of the meeting of the Masters of Foxhounds' Association and the Council of Hunting Associations in Yorkshire, was to ensure individual hunts acted in unison, once the ban came into effect on February 18.

Similar meetings are being held in other regions across the country.

A spokesman for the Countryside Alliance said its two-pronged legal attack on the ban, through a challenge of the Parliament Act and to the European Court of Human Rights, was continuing.

A survey in one Sunday newspaper found that 70 per cent of the public believed the police should not enforce the ban on hunting.

The opinion poll found that the majority of people thought officers should concentrate on other crimes once hunting with hounds becomes illegal.