Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member Finance

The Mayor referred members to the process for dealing with petitions at Council which had been circulated with the agenda.  He invited the representative of the petition organiser, Liz Gaffer, to present the petition;

• “We the undersigned, call on Cheltenham Borough Council to give financial support to local badger vaccination projects being undertaken and to financially assist other badger vaccination projects which may be set up in Gloucestershire.”

The petitioner explained that the county of Gloucestershire had become a hotspot for TB and the disease had a devastating effect on farmers once it had been detected in a herd.  This resulted in significant cost to the farmer and was an extremely stressful experience for them. Badgers were one factor in the spread of disease and though there was no current vaccination for the cattle, vaccination of badgers was an efficient way of dealing with the issue. Badger vaccination had the potential to reduce the incidence of the disease by 74% and only 70% of a badger set needed to be vaccinated. The badger cull last year had cost an extraordinary amount of money, well over government estimates, due to the extra policing required. Their research indicated that 82% of the public were against badger culling. She reassured Members that any vaccination programme would be carried out by properly trained operatives supported by volunteers. There was such a group in Gloucestershire and they would take responsibility for coordinating and organising a programme, training operatives and volunteers and supplying matched funding.

The Mayor invited Members to ask any questions on the supporting officer report.

A member asked what would be the arrangements for receiving and determining any application for funding.

The Chief Executive advised that this has not yet been agreed and suggested that the Cabinet Member may want to deal with this in his response.

A member asked for figures on the number of badgers and cattle in the Cheltenham Borough and was advised that officers did not have this information.

A member referred to in paragraph 4.2 of the report and was concerned that over 300 of the 750 signatures required were not local residents and this could be setting a precedent for the future.

The Chief Executive advised that the scheme required signatures from those living, working or studying in Cheltenham. On contacting the petition organisers on this issue, officers were assured that these requirements had been made clear to all those signing the petition.

Councillor Rawson, as Cabinet Member for Finance, responded to the petition and advised that he had set out to provide a proportional response to the petition. There was a general acceptance that badger vaccination was widely accepted as a potential useful way to combat bovine TB and this was accepted by the government and the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. He was proposing that the Council made a contribution to this vaccination programme if a suitably qualified organiser came forward with a plan. As he was only proposing a modest amount of matched funding, he suggested this could be done under delegated powers by Cabinet unless members felt particularly strongly that it should come back to Council for a decision. Before allocating any funding, Cabinet would need to be satisfied that the programme was adequately equipped, planned and costed with suitably qualified operatives. He advised members that in agreeing to matched funding they would not be making a long-term commitment in the revenue budget but in the short term he felt it could potentially do some useful work. 

In the debate that followed a member said that he had always been against the cull and this view was supported by many members of the public who felt shooting badgers was an uncertain process and cruel to animals. In his view Council needed to persuade the government to back farmers and find a long-term solution to this problem. If badger vaccination was effective he questioned why the government was not initiating such a programme. He felt it was good for this Council to be showing some leadership on this issue but he felt that the Council should be writing to DEFRA encouraging them to provide funding for vaccination.

Other members were against the cull and hoped that whatever funding the Council could offer in support of a vaccination programme would help prevent further animals, both badgers and cattle, being killed. They suggested the government should be doing more to find a vaccination for cattle as it seemed ridiculous that a vaccine to prevent TB had been found for humans and badgers but not for cattle.

Upon a vote it was

RESOLVED (with 1 abstention) that Council;

1. Accepts that badger vaccination is a potentially useful way of the preventing the spread and severity of bovine TB.

2. Is prepared to consider an application for match funding from an organisation that is capable of carrying out badger vaccination in Cheltenham Borough, provided the application sets out a credible plan for a vaccination programme, including clear objectives and costs.

3. Will write to the petition organisers to inform them accordingly.