officials were last night forced to admit that hundreds of animals buried in the wrong place will have to stay there because there is no safe way to dispose of them.

Earlier this week, a Ministry of Agriculture (Maff) spokesman said the carcasses had already been exhumed from the grave on West Shipley Farm, at Hamsterley, County Durham and would be stored until they could be reburied at a site in Tow Law, County Durham.

However, the ministry was forced to back-track last night and admit that the animals were staying where they were because the grave, wrongly placed on top of a water spring, contained cattle over five years old.

Cattle of that age should be incarcerated.

A Maff spokesman said the animals were buried before the guidelines were issued.

He said: "Before that change came in, cattle over five years old were buried. There has been a delay at West Shipley because we can't rebury them, and there is no appropriate site where we can burn."

He said that Maff was looking at two other options, rendering or using an air curtain method of burning.

Meanwhile, temporary measures have been installed to protect the water supply.

A mass grave earmarked for exhumation at Low West House Farm, Tow Law, will also stay intact, after it emerged that it too contained cattle over the age of five.

The carcasses from both farms were expected to among the first to be reburied at the Inkerman site, at Tow Law.

Durham County Council announced that the Derwent Walk, Deerness Valley Railway Path and Beamish Burn picnic area would be open from today.

But the news came as Maff confirmed the first case in the county for a week, at Park Farm, Little Newsham, near Winston.