Disease-hit pubs launch legal bid for £5bn compensation
Licensees affected by the foot-and-mouth outbreak are to issue the Government with a writ for £5.1bn compensation.
The writ will be issued by the newly-formed United Kingdom Rural Business Campaign (UKRBC) at the High Court on February 19 - the anniversary of the beginning of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
The group has launched a legal action against the Government because, although it compensated farmers for the effects of the disease, it failed to compensate any other businesses.
Val Sinclair, licensee of the Old Three Pigeons in Shropshire, said: "Last year foot-and-mouth was a disaster, not only for Shropshire but the whole of the UK. We have seen a drastic fall in the numbers of foreign visitors and our turnover was wiped out during the spring bank holiday weekends while the countryside was closed down by the Government."
At the end of last year the UKRBC approached a firm of solicitors to see what could be done to help affected businesses.
It looked into the issue and decided the Government had acted unlawfully both by closing the roads and by compensating farmers, but no one else. So the UKRBC decided to act.
"We're going round the country having meetings and telling publicans and the business community to fill in our form and lodge an interest," said Ms Sinclair.
In December, the solicitors acting on behalf of the UKRBC wrote to the treasury solicitor, the legal representative of the Government, to outline the action.
The letter read: "The total financial losses suffered, and continuing to be suffered, by our clients are very considerable. It is a matter of urgency and national importance that their position is dealt with fully and expeditiously, since individuals have been driven to the brink of desperation and, in some cases, suicide, as a result of the mishandling of the crisis."
Ms Sinclair said: "Things are still bad. Last week the hotel in our village closed down and a pub/restaurant six miles from us was closed down over the weekend.
"In Northumberland everything has a "for sale" or "to let" sign. It's absolutely dreadful and these people are suffering through no fault of their own."
