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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Judith Bush, Professor Peter Phillimore, Professor Tanja Pless-Mulloli, Dr Christine Thompson
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This paper examines controversy during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak after mass carcass burial sites were selected at two sites in northeast England, and focuses on shortcomings in public consultation surrounding the carcass disposal policy. The slaughter of six million animals necessitated a national disposal strategy on a hitherto unknown scale. The belated decision to concentrate carcass disposal in a small number of mass burial sites provoked more opposition in the two ex-mining localities selected in the northeast than anywhere else. In both cases local liaison committees were established to manage dialogue between residents and public authorities. We argue that, although seen by the authorities primarily as a vehicle for risk communication and public reassurance, for residents these functioned chiefly as a vehicle for holding public authorities to account. These divergent purposes were overshadowed by the chaotic circumstances in which the early stages of the mass burial policy were implemented, and the way in which the carcass disposal policy was dictated by the operation of the slaughter policy, whose draconian form precluded any but the most cursory public consultation. © 2005 Taylor & Francis.
Author(s): Bush J, Phillimore PR, Pless-Mulloli T, Thompson C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Local Environment
Year: 2005
Volume: 10
Issue: 6
Pages: 649-664
Print publication date: 01/12/2005
ISSN (print): 1354-9839
ISSN (electronic): 1469-6711
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13549830500321907
DOI: 10.1080/13549830500321907
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