Do Not Close the Veterinary Services Disease Surveillance and Post Mortem facility in Inverness

Please don't close the sac inverness

This service is vital to crofters and farmers in the Highlands .

Please don't close this vital facility, or at least ensure it remains as part of the new facility when the move happens.

This service is vital to the livelihood of west coast crofters

I think this is a retrograde step made for the wrong reasons which will have a severe negative impact on disease surveillance and health of livestock in a huge geographical area.

As a commercial turkey, sheep and cattle producer the loss of this lab would severely affect my ability to respond to disease outbreak. I have also used the lab for fertility testing of tups

This is a vital service for all who keep livestock in the North of Scotland. It includes pet animals also.

We need to keep this vital service for the Highlands

It would be a tragedy to throw away such a valuable service and to lose the expertise associated with the facility.

This is a vital service for farmers in the Highland Region.

This is an invaluable resource for the North of Scotland.

This is a vital service for farmers in the Highland Region.

Essential for the important work that can not only protect livestock but for us as meat eaters. And also for analysis of wildlife remains or baits which may have been poisoned, our countryside has to be kept safe.

It is vital for the agricultural community in the Scottish Highlands that this facility remains open.

important for the food chain and for re-wilding

We need this facility in Inverness

It needs to stay open

Imperative this facility stays open

I just wanted to draw you attention to an article in this week’s Scottish Farmer: The article is by Eleanor Mackay and in it she states that plans to close the Inverness Disease Surveillance centre have been damned by the man whose name graces the report being used to justify shutting it down. Former National Farmers Union Scotland President, John Kinnaird, author of the Kinnaird Review of Veterinary Surveillance, has called the plan utter lunacy. “ I fundamentally oppose a planned closure of the Inverness DSC without having an alternative there” he stated. “ Closing the Inverness site is utter lunacy and is nothing but setting Scotland’s disease surveillance backwards, not forwards”. David Stewart on reading this article said “ This surely must make the Senior Executives at the Scottish Rural College (SRuC) sit up and take stock. If the man who carried out the review of Scotland’s Veterinary Surveillance claims it is utter lunacy to close the Inverness facility and most, if not all those using the facility claim the same, then where on earth is the SRuC’s mandate to close it”?

Comment from SRUC: We would stress that we are running a thorough and open consultation with a full range of stakeholders and we encourage as much participation as possible. We invite those wishing to comment on the proposals to access the full consultation document on the SRUC website at www.sruc.ac.uk/diseasesurveillanceconsultation. The proposals on which we are consulting are driven by a need to ensure that an efficient, sustainable and robust disease surveillance service for Scotland and the UK is maintained.