It was under the shadow of the M25, in a semi-suburban stretch of Surrey, that the alarm was raised. For the second time in two months, roads were closed and a farmer’s financial future put at risk, amid the spectre of foot-and-mouth disease.

At the centre of the outbreak this time were the Aberdeen Angus cattle belonging to Robert Lawrence.

It is believed that about 20 cattle grazing on land known locally as Mrs Caddy’s field were culled yesterday morning. Mr Lawrence grazes his cattle at about six different locations in the area, as well as the family home at Hardwick Park Farm, in Lyne, Chertsey.

Yesterday, after he had alerted the authorities to suspicious symptoms on Tuesday evening, the police set up cordons at two locations, both within earshot of the motorway traffic. The first was at the scene of the cull, at Milton Park Farm, near Egham. The field, owned jointly by a local gravel-pit company and Run- nymede Borough Council, is just one of the piecemeal bits of land where Mr Lawrence spreads his livestock, as the commuter belt expands around him.

The red alert in Egham has now brought an abrupt end to the relief felt by farmers in the area that the disease had been successfully contained after the last outbreak around the Pirbright laboratory, only ten miles away.

As traffic jammed and local agricultural businesses were held hostage until laboratory results were confirmed, those who depended on livestock for their livelihood were all asking the same question: where did it come from?

The second cordoned-off area within the three-mile exclusion zone was the lane around Hardwick Park Farm, home to the Lawrence family, the majority of their cattle and about 20 pigs. Neighbours seemed frustrated by the lack of information from Defra.

Carl Boyde, a vet and fellow farmer who lives opposite Mr Lawrence and has worked in the area for the past 55 years, said that the cordons had not been raised around the lane until yesterday afternoon. He added that his pleas for information were rebuffed by the authorities. “I called Defra and when I asked where and when the cull had been they told me it was classified information,” he said. “I have had to get all the information backwards, from my MP and neighbours, instead of Defra. It is very frustrating.”

Mr Lawrence, who lives on the farm with his wife, Katie, and their two young sons, comes from a local farming family and is believed to have been building up his cattle business in the area over the past ten years.

Mr Lawrence was not available for comment. However, Peter Boast, a tree surgeon and landscaper who works at Hardwick Park, said it had been a day of stress and anxiety for the family and their farming neighbours. “The mood has been pretty low,” he said, as he left Hardwick Lane. “It has been a nightmare.”

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