Government badger control costs 2019
Updated 7 September 2023
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-government-badger-control-costs/government-badger-control-costs-2019
1. Background
On 11 September 2019, Defra published, as part of its measured approach to tackling bovine TB and achieving disease control benefits, Natural England’s authorisations to local farmers and landowners to carry out targeted badger control in parts of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Wilshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall.
Operations took place between 2 September and 27 October 2019.
2. Badger control costs
Information on costs to government in 2014 to 2019 is provided in Table 1 below.
| Badger control costs | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licensing and compliance monitoring | £1,036,000 | £1,003,000 | £1,284,000 | £1,289,000 | £1,312,000 | £1,459,000 |
| Humaneness monitoring, including post mortems | £1,515,000 | £154,000 | £392,000 | £506,000 | £352,000 | £388,000 |
| Efficacy monitoring | £17,000 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Advice and assessments | £294,000 | £460,000 | £646,000 | £728,000 | £410,000 | £314,000 |
| Other costs, including equipment | £205,000 | £162,000 | £53,000 | £49,000 | £1,000 | £20,000 |
| Total cost | £3,067,000 | £1,779,000 | £2,375,000 | £2,572,000 | £2,075,000 | £2,181,000 |
Information and data on badger control monitoring in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in 2018 is available.
3. Badger control policing costs funded by Defra
The total cost for policing in 2019 across all participating forces was of £3,658,000
Policing costs are also published by individual forces.