The carcasses of up to 2,000 livestock slaughtered in the foot and mouth epidemic are to be brought to Bradford city centre each week to be destroyed.

Renderers P Waddington and Co, of Box Street, off Leeds Road, is to dispose of as many as ten lorry loads of dead livestock a day, as the foot and mouth epidemic spreads across the country.

But angry Bradford councillors said they were only made aware of the plan yesterday and the transportation of hundreds of dead animals from all over the north of England was set to begin today.

Senior Council officers and councillors were set to meet Ministry of Agriculture officials, the police and army in a bid to gain reassurances about the safety of transporting contaminated carcasses not only on roads that adjoin farmland in Skipton, Bingley and Shipley but into a heavily populated city centre.

Council Leader, Councillor Margaret Eaton, was concerned about the lack of consultation.

She said she understood the need to contain the spread of the disease but was unhappy that MAFF was forcing a solution on Bradford district without first consulting the authority at the highest level.

She said: "The decision to render dead livestock in Bradford city centre was taken by MAFF alone.

"I will now be seeking cast iron guarantees from MAFF that, if plans are to go ahead, then the most stringent precautions will be taken in transporting and dealing with carcasses.

"We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that the livelihoods of farmers are protected in every possible way."

A Council spokesman said as far as it was aware, the contract between MAFF and Waddington's was complete.

"There has been no high-level involvement with elected members of Bradford Council and this is a major issue," he said.

MAFF yesterday invited Council environmental health officers to visit the factory, but no-one from the department was available for comment earlier today. The proposals were approved because the factory is technically capable of coping with the workload.

It is probable that the carcass-laden lorries - which will come from as far afield as Cumbria and the west coast - will follow a route along the A650 through farming communities in Skipton, Bingley and Shipley.

The Council has been assured that each lorry will be escorted on its route by a Meat and Livestock Commission officer, but the Council wants to assurances that all precautions are being taken and that lorries will be sealed and sprayed with disinfectant.

David Brook, factory manager at Waddingtons, said there was no cause for concern as the carcasses would be arriving on the site in enclosed wagons.

He said: "There will be no carcasses left at the end of the day and the whole thing is done under cover.

"The animal comes to us in a raw state and we put it into a kind of big mincer. This is all enclosed and extraction units deal with the smell.

"The carcass goes through plant processors and the fat is extracted and it then goes into a filter system, a boiler. The residue which is left is taken in sealed wagons to a landfill site.

"This poses absolutely no danger to anyone. The Ministry is desperate and we are helping them out. We are also helping the Government to get rid of the disease."

He said the rendering was treated the same as shop or slaughterhouse waste, only in this case, they had to break down the bones themselves.

The carcasses of foot and mouth victims from as far a field as Cumbria could be taken to Waddingtons for rendering.

The factory is one of only six in the country which MAFF can choose from and the closest to one of the worst outbreaks in Cumbria.

A Yorkshire Water spokesman confirmed that none of the products from the Waddingtons' plant would end up in the sewerage system.

"Yorkshire Water would like to stress that even though the boiling process will destroy any traces of the infection and the residue created will not be entering the city's sewerage system, instead MAFF has arranged for it to be tankered away from the site and disposed of."

West Yorkshire still has a limited number of foot and mouth cases but in Cumbria the number of infected farms is 386 and still rising.

The army is in charge of the clear-up operations in the area overseeing the 35 pyres.

But not all of the animals can be burned - the figure is about 1,000 a day - so another 1,500 go for rendering and 4,500 are buried.

The burying of cattle at a local airfield was halted because of BSE fears but a Government decision eventually allowed the burial of cattle under five years of age.

P Waddington & Co of Box Street off Leeds Road is a 100-year-old company which moved to its present hi-tech site after the old factory was razed to the ground in September 1998.

Its new premises contains state-of-the-art anti-pollution and odour control features.