THE Government's war on foot-and-mouth in North Yorkshire began yesterday, as vets prepared to test more than 50,000 animals for the disease.

Police and council officials are patrolling key routes around the clock, in a bio-security zone which takes in Thirsk and part of the A1 motorway.

Ministers ordered the clampdown amid fears that the disease was still raging out of control in North Yorkshire.

A further case of foot-and-mouth was confirmed at Epsyke Farm, Hutton Mulgrave, near Whitby, yesterday, taking the total in the county to 126.

Experts have warned that unless the disease is stamped out within the next few weeks, the UK faces a foot-and-mouth nightmare this winter.

Yesterday, 15 teams took to the roads, carrying out checks on milk tankers and other vehicles, to ensure that they are cleaned properly when entering and leaving farms.

The patrols - each comprising a police and trading standards officer - are the front-line force in North Yorkshire, designated the country's foot-and-mouth "hot zone" by scientists.

Meanwhile, vets from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) began blood sampling on up to 50,000 sheep in the zone, which stretches from York and Harrogate to Malton and Northallerton.

A Defra spokesman said: "We are starting at the outer limits of the area and testing as we go, to see the scale of the disease in the area. By the time we get to the middle, we should have taken out any trace of the disease."

Animal Health Minister Elliot Morley is due to visit North Yorkshire today, to see the new measures being put into action.

Meanwhile, Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh has condemned the Government's decision to scrap its standardised compensation scheme.

In a letter to rural affairs supremo Margaret Beckett, she said: "When the farmers find themselves in the midst of the greatest crisis that livestock production has ever faced, you choose to cut the compensation available.

"I would be very grateful to know the grounds and legal basis on which you have taken this decision."

A second mass cull of 1,200 sheep on the Brecon Beacons began yesterday. The Welsh Assembly ordered the slaughter after positive results were found in the blood tests of 800 ewes.

Read more about the foot-and-mouth crisis here.