FARMING leaders have welcomed the easing of foot and mouth restrictions on thousands of farms in North Yorkshire.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs late last week announced that animal movement restrictions were being relaxed across the county, apart from some farms in the Skipton and Settle area.

Rural Affairs Minister Lord Whitty said the measure was an important step forward, although vigilance and strict biosecurity continued to be essential.

Derek Watson, who is chairman of the York County branch of the National Farmers' Union and farms at West Knapton near Malton, said: "It's good news for the industry. Everything is looking good - fingers crossed."

He stressed that movement restrictions had not yet been completely removed. "There are still a lot of restrictions out there. Everything has still to move under licence."

NFU regional spokesman Rob Simpson said the move took the country a step closer to achieving vital disease-free status and a resumption of exports.

Policy advisor for the NFU, Laurie Norris, described the announcement as "great news for northern England."

He added: "Farmers will still need to get licences from DEFRA before they can move their livestock, and there will still be a number of restrictions affecting the region, but this marks an important step forward for the region to ultimately be granted a disease-free status. Exports can only resume from disease-free areas."

Mr Norris also stressed the need to "maintain high levels of biosecurity in case we have a resurgence of the virus."

A DEFRA spokeswoman said the relaxation of restrictions had been possible following the completion of the testing of thousands of sheep with satisfactory results.

The country's last confirmed case of foot-and-mouth happened more than seven weeks ago on September 30, and North Yorkshire's last case was near Whitby on August 18.

Restrictions were lifted at the end of last week on 8,496 farms in North Yorkshire, Northumberland, Lancashire and Cumbria and is in addition to the 5,026 farms released from a substantial part of Durham and parts of Cumbria the previous day.

Three smaller Infected Areas will remain, as will the Penrith Restricted Infected Area, affecting 6,630 farms. These are in Hexham (North Pennines IA), Skipton (Skipton IA) and Cumbria (Northern IA). The North Pennines Infected Area is smaller than, and replaces, the Hexham Restricted Infected Area (Blue Box).

Updated: 12:50 Thursday, November 15, 2001