Cheshire Wildlife Trust has welcomed proposals to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB in some parts of the UK, which could include Cheshire.

Environment Minister Owen Paterson announced the plans last week plans and said a potential further expansion of the Government’s badger culling programme which was previously due to extend across 10 areas of the UK, would no longer take place this year.

The government did, however, stop short of calling a halt on badger culling pilot schemes in Gloucestershire and Somerset this summer, which will continue as planned,  despite damning results from an independent assessment panel which highlighted significant missed targets across effectiveness and humaneness of the scheme last year.

It was also revealed that the same independent assessment process will no longer be used from this summer, leading to concerns over how the process will be monitored.

The news also comes just weeks after the Cheshire Wildlife Trust joined with other stakeholders in the multi-agency Cheshire TB Eradication Group to launch a six-month analysis of roadkill badgers across Cheshire.

Based at the University of Liverpool, the study is aiming to test up to 100 badgers from across the county and provide an initial indication of if, and where, TB is present in the badger population.

Since 2012, Cheshire Wildlife Trust has been operating a badger TB vaccination service across the region, which this year is expected to cover farms totalling almost 1,500 hectares.

The conservation charity believes that vaccinating badgers against bovine TB over a five-year period could help to create a natural barrier of immunity within the badger population, helping to slow its progression northwards.

In a Commons statement last week, Environment Minister Owen Paterson proposed a similar programme of badger vaccination within ‘edge areas’  which would currently include Cheshire,  in an attempt to create a ‘buffer zone’ against the disease.

Richard Gardner, leading the Trust’s vaccination scheme said: “Whilst we remain firmly opposed to the Government’s continued strategy of putting badger culling at the heart of efforts to tackle this disease, it’s a welcome first step to see the Minister finally acknowledging  the role that badger vaccination can play in ‘edge’ areas like Cheshire.

“At the Wildlife Trusts we have made it clear for several years that badger vaccination has a key role to play. However, we acknowledge that it must be part of a wide-ranging set of measures including better biosecurity and a cattle vaccine. We’ve been putting badger vaccination into practice here in the north west for three years, and this year expect the biggest take-up since we began in 2012.

 “What must happen now is a fast-tracking of investment into badger vaccination – perhaps with those funds that would previously have been directed into the cull expansion – to assist those farmers who want to maintain TB-free badgers, and hopefully TB-free cattle herds,” he added.