Beware – bcms will stick to ‘letter’ of law

Farmers are being warned by the NFU that if they forget about important postal price changes, they risk being refused passports for their animals.

On Monday of this week, the rate at which something costs to send in the mail changed. While the old system was based only on the weight of your items, the new system will be based on both size and weight.

NFU North West Livestock Board Chairman, Alistair Mackintosh, is worried farmers will fall foul of the new system when returning their important passport applications to the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS).

BCMS has flagged up that if keepers do not put the correct postage on applications, delivery may be delayed. In some cases this will lead to keepers missing the application deadline and being refused a passport for their animals.

Mr Mackintosh said: "BCMS do not accept insufficient postage as grounds for an appeal against a late application, so keepers must make sure that they use the correct amount.

"If a farmer is refused a passport for an animal that animal cannot be sold for human consumption or moved off that farmer's holding for any other reason.

"The NFU hopes there will be a transition period granted by BCMS but nevertheless farmers need to be focused on getting these documents to them on time.

"BCMS has also urged keepers not to fold their applications, in order to save postage costs, as this could cause problems with their scanning system and delay processing. In my opinion sending in your application electronically is by far the safest way to correspond with BCMS."