A FOUR-year-old row over unpaid foot-and-mouth bills is still raging after the Government only received a third of the support cash it was hoping for from Europe.

The European Commission has agreed to pay £350 million to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs towards the £3 billion cost of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak.

But the sum is well below the UK's claim of £960 million after the commission suggested animals culled had been "overvalued" and the department had "overpaid for goods and services".

Despite the shortfall, the Forum of Private Businesses called on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to "snap out of its inertia and cough up" the estimated £50 million still owed to contractors.

Among them are Cumbria County Council-owned firms Cumbria Waste Management and Cumbria Contract Services which have been pursuing claims for around £6.4 million through the High Court since August. A claim from Lakeland Waste Management was settled in September.

FPB chief executive Nick Goulding said: "The fact that Defra's inefficiency in handling the crisis has caused the EC to refuse to award the sum which Defra claimed is no reason not to pay the countless hard-working firms that carried out first-class work in good faith."