IT'S welcome news that, according to an independent report, the Throckmorton airfield site containing 130,000 animal carcases buried during the foot-and-mouth crisis isn't a timebomb waiting to go off.

Defra says the impact on the environment is negligible and, therefore acceptable.

The department says the same about the risk to health, and hopes fears will be allayed.

Both pronouncements consider the science of the matter, but they don't pay enough regard to the human consequences.

Having as good as dismissed local concerns initially, it took a huge outcry to force Defra in to commissioning the report.

They cannot - and must not - adopt the same attitude now that the report appears to have let them off the hook.

If we accept its findings - we have no immediate reason to do otherwise - the psychological impact of the saga has been very real. And simply hoping that fears will be allayed is not enough.

The pits were filled before Defra could say, categorically, what the study has said. But property prices have been blighted, families have suffered anguish and disruption, and a pall hangs over the entire area.

If the findings aren't what residents were expecting, then - assuming they believe its findings - at least part of the cloud can be lifted from the lives of those living closest to the site.

Lifting the rest is the Government's responsibility.

When plans for an asylum camp at the former RAF base heaped trauma upon trauma, we said these people had done their bit for the country in a crisis. Someone else must now repay that sacrifice.