VILLAGERS who lived in the shadow of a foot-and-mouth dump at the height of the 2001 crisis have welcomed a move to turn the site into a nature reserve.

Durham Wildlife Trust has signed an agreement with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to manage the 30-hectare burial site near Tow Law, County Durham.

Defra shipped 45,000 animals to Tow Law, despite residents' protests, and continues to monitor the burial pits.

Above ground, there is funding for a task force of volunteers to work with development officer Craig Best to reclaim the site as part of the Hedleyhope Fell Nature Reserve.

Despite the disturbance, it is home to ground nesting birds, including lapwing and snipe, and fences that once kept out demonstrators will be taken down as work progresses over the next few months.

After Defra and the trust signed a management agreement, in Tow Law Community Centre, Jenny Flynn, who was chairwoman of Tow Law Town Council in 2001, said: "People will feel much more comfortable now that the site is part of the nature reserve because it means it can't be used again for that purpose.

"It has closed an unpleasant chapter for Tow Law and hopefully we will get something worthwhile out of it."

Tow Law's MP Hilary Armstrong said: "If there was anything I would have liked to have changed over the last ten years it was foot-and-mouth.

"At the time people were incredibly suspicious and angry and it was very difficult.

"This will be a lasting reminder of the devastation of foot-and-mouth and a memorial to the animals who suffered."