ARE your readers aware the live export trade has just started up again after last year's outbreak of foot and mouth?

Two and a half thousand lambs were shipped from Dover on July 15 to Holland and then on to Italy, France or Spain to be slaughtered.

This trade should be banned. The lambs could be slaughtered locally and the carcasses exported. This trade continues because farmers make an extra £3 a lamb on live ones.

We had to endure all those farmers crying crocodile tears last year and receiving large payouts from the Government in compensation for lost stock.

If those farmers have the welfare of their animals at heart, they would stop this shameful trade now!

Jenny Horner,

Avon Drive,

Huntington,

York.

Updated: 10:17 Wednesday, July 31, 2002