Wales slams loss of equine database
Welsh Deputy Minister for Agriculture Alun Davies has branded Defra’s decision to stop funding the National Equine Database (NED) as “a disaster”.
NED — the database of British-registered horses’ passports — closed in September after government funding was withdrawn.
Wales has a serious problem of horses being dumped on public and private land.
Mr Davies said Defra’s decision would reduce the enforcement authorities’ ability to check and trace owners of horses.
He has written to the English Government, urging them to rethink.
“It is a very poor decision that has made our lives exceedingly difficult,” he told H&H.
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.