A BADGER cull will not be allowed to take place on any land owned by Stroud District Council, the authority has decided.

After an impassioned hour-long debate at a full council meeting, those members of SDC opposed to a potential cull prevailed in a closely contested vote.

A motion, proposed by Cllr David Drew (Lab, Paganhill and Farmhill), which supported banning any cull, was backed by 20 councillors, with 14 voting against and 11 abstaining.

Seconded by Cllr John Marjoram (Green Trinity), the approved motion called for SDC not to permit the culling of badgers on land it owned, managed or controlled.

It also urged the council to join forces with the pressure group Stroud 100, which is campaigning against the possibility of a cull.

Although there are no plans for a culling programme in the district at present, pilot schemes involving the controlled shooting of badgers are currently underway in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset.

And there is a chance that Defra could seek to expand the schemes to the Stroud district.

The sensitive issue of badger culling is one which polarises opinion and Cllr Drew acknowledged as much, describing it as a ‘highly emotive subject’ when presenting his motion.

Despite arousing strong feelings though, the debate prior to the vote was as amicable and reasoned as it was emotionally charged.

Cllr Drew began by saying a cull was wrong both on moral and scientific grounds.

He continued to say: "There are an awful lot of people in our district who would oppose a cull very strongly and this district needs to be immune from any attempt to impose one."

However, Cllr Graham Littleton (Con, Hardwicke) disagreed.

He said a badger cull was necessary because the animals were responsible for spreading bovine tuberculosis to livestock.

Cllr Littleton, himself a dairy farmer, said an outbreak of bovine TB could devastate a small farming business and that the disease was particularly prevalent in the district.

"We have to remember the human cost in the farming community," he said.

"Just over a year ago one of my friends took his life because he could not cope after losing his livestock to bovine TB."

In a statement released after the meeting, Stroud 100 founder member Jeanne Berry said she was ‘delighted’ that SDC had endorsed the motion.