CEREDIGION councillors are due to consider a motion this week calling for a badger cull in the county to protect farms and livestock from bovine TB.

Controversial plans for a cull sparked angry protests in 2011 and led to the Welsh Government agreeing a five-year vaccination plan in 2012.

But the motion that will go before a full council meeting on Thursday, 24 March, insists the “non-scientific” vaccination programme has failed.

Cllr Gareth Lloyd has proposed the motion and been seconded by council deputy leader Ray Quant.

The motion says that after talks with council chiefs from Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, it was agreed that pressure should be put on the Welsh Government to abandon the vaccination programme and instead agree to a cull of badgers.

The motion says: “An increasing number of livestock farms in Ceredigion, and indeed the above mentioned counties and throughout Wales and the UK, are under bovine tuberculosis restrictions due to an increase in bovine tuberculosis.

“This is having a devastating effect on the wellbeing of animals, emotional stress on people operating and employed on farms, financial viability of the individual businesses and is a contributory factor to the fragility of the Ceredigion economy.

“In light of the complete breakdown of the inadequate current non-scientific vaccination programme, this council calls on the Welsh Government and all political parties to support and implement a programme of targeted badger culling.

“This should be in response to evidence of significant risk to the cattle population in order to break the cycle of infection between badgers and cattle and the subsequent increase in bovine TB.”