Thousands of pro-hunt and countryside campaigners from North Yorkshire joined massed ranks of demonstrators in Newcastle to shout a message of protest to the Government.

Supporters of the Sinnington Hunt assemble at Kirkbymoorside before departing by coach for a pro-countryside march in Newcastle

More than 15,000 people from rural communities across the North descended on the city yesterday for March North - the latest in a wave of regional protests under the banner Rural Britain Deserves Better.

Prior to the march, Countryside Alliance Yorkshire spokesman John Haigh said: "The Government refuses to listen to us and we feel we are no further forward than we were before the countryside march eighteen months ago, when 300,000 took to the streets, so we are taking to the streets again."

Members of Sinnington, Middleton, York and Ainsty (North), York and Ainsty (South), Bramham Moor, Derwent, Hurworth, Bilsdale, Farndale, Goathland, and Bedale hunts joined the demonstration in a bid to block Government proposals to ban hunting with hounds.

Andrew Osborne, joint master of Sinnington Hunt, said: "We are trying to get the Government to wake up to the fact that rural Britain won't be treated in this way."

Moves to ban hunting would deal a blow to rural jobs, such as saddlers, grooms and feed merchants, and not just to those who hunt.

He said: "What people who don't understand fox hunting don't realise is that it is a golden thread that runs through many rural communities and has done for hundreds of years.

"We are not going to take this lying down."

Frank Houghton-Brown, master of Middleton Hunt, said: "Rural Britain is under enough pressure at the moment. We want the Government to leave people who work in the countryside to sort themselves out and to concentrate on other issues."

He said the march was a bid to save the 16,000 jobs, which campaigners claim would be lost across the country if a hunting ban came in.

The march brought the city centre to a standstill and a rally saw key-note speeches from Countryside Alliance chief executive Richard Burge and Campaign for Hunting chairman Sam Butler.

The RSPCA-backed Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals has highlighted an independent study by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne which claims less than 100 full-time jobs in Yorkshire and the North East would be hit by a hunting ban.

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