FARMERS on more than 1,500 farms in North Yorkshire have had foot-and-mouth restrictions lifted this week, but it will mean little change in their problems.

Thirsk biosecurity "blue box" restrictions were lifted by Defra but, according to Thirsk NFU secretary, Mr David Palmer, all Defra has done is to lift one set of restrictions to replace them with others.

"All it means is that that trading standard officers and police will no longer be stopping people. The announced move is no excuse for anyone to stop taking precautions," he said.

"We now have to work urgently towards getting the new restrictions, such as blood testing, under way so that we can get the store cattle situation sorted out. Recent restrictions in the movement of cattle and sheep mean that local farms have run out of store animals. We still cannot move cattle into the area and we will have to apply for "D" licences to get cattle moving."

He agreed that the Defra move was the first in the right direction but said problems were far from over.

"We have to get store cattle movement before winter approaches. We need to get an autumn movement sorted out, whereby farmers can re-stock before winter when there are no movements of cattle," he added.

For Defra, Lord Whitty said: "The lifting of restrictions means that some areas are now classed as 'at risk', rather than 'high risk'. This means farmers will have more options to move livestock under autumn movement restrictions."

During the Thirsk biosecurity enforcement programme, trading standards/police patrols carried out spot checks on more than 5,000 vehicles and 8,000 footpaths, and over 4,500 farms visits by milk tankers and feed lorries were supervised by officials. Infringements are now typically below 5pc of vehicles and footpaths checked, compared with more than 15pc in some cases at the start of the programme. Some prosecutions are expected.