A FARMER whose land is still blighted by 13,000 tonnes of ash and charred animal remains two years after the foot and mouth crisis has failed to force the Government to incinerate the mess.

Robin Feakins insisted the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is legally obliged to clear up his land and take away the refuse to be incinerated at an estimated cost of more than £6 million.

But DEFRA says it is entitled to bury the refuse in a landfill site at the much lower cost of about £1.9 million.

Three appeal court judges came down in favour of DEFRA, leaving Mr Feakins to face substantial legal costs.

The judges heard earlier that Mr Feakins once kept 820 cattle and 700 sheep on Sparum Farm, near Kidderminster, but all his livestock were culled as the foot and mouth epidemic swept the nation in 2001.

His animals, and thousands more from other farms, were burned on enormous pyres on his land and ash and the partially burnt remnants of at least 4,750 animals remain there.

Mr Feakins had said he had environmental concerns and was anxious that, if the remains were not properly disposed of, he could face civil, or even criminal, liability.

But Lord Justice Dyson rejected claims that DEFRA was obliged by European law to take the incineration - rather than the landfill - route of doing away with the blight on Mr Feakins' land.

DEFRA was, in this case, entitled to depart from normal EU rules.

Sitting with Lord Justice Thorpe and Lord Justice Jonathan Parker, he said it was DEFRA's case that there simply was not "the capacity" to incinerate such a large volume of material.

He said there was also expert evidence that taking the remains to landfill would cause "negligible" risk to human or animal health.