A village has been nearly torn apart by plans to test genetically modified crops, it has been claimed.

Michael Talbot, a member of St Osyth Parish Council and Tendring district councillor, said: "We feel the parish has been let down by the Environment Department.

"After announcing the trials on March 17, the Department has done nothing," he said, adding that representatives from the Department had been invited to the village for meetings but none had attended.

Mr Talbot was speaking at a public meeting in Ipswich on proposed GM crop farm trials. He said: "This issue has nearly torn our parish apart.

"The farmer who agreed to run the trial is a member of our community, well-known and well-liked, who has had his back to the wall trying to defend the ministry trial with no official support of any kind."

Farmer Guy Smith has agreed not to plant the GM oil seed rape on an 18-acre test area until after a village referendum on the controversy on May 4.

"He has been a lone voice crying in the wilderness with very few of his fellow villagers prepared to chance something they see as a great unkown," Mr Talbot added.

He said the council faced a bill of between £1,200 to £1,500 for the cost of the referendum adding it could have been used to support other village organisations.

"Let Aventis, whose seed it is proposed to plant, pay for our village poll," Mr Talbot said.

Mr Talbot was one of a handful of representatives from St Osyth at the meeting which attracted about 80 villagers, activists and members of the public.

Representatives from the DETR, scientific researchers into GM crops, the organisation for the trials Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops, and Friends of the Earth were on hand to give information and views on the trials.

Phil West, of the DETR, said: "If we'd had more time we would like to have come to a village which has a site but we don't have time."

He said the trials were also restricted by European legislation on how they could be conducted and added the department has written twice to Mr Smith about concerns he had raised.

Steve Smith, of SCIMAC, said as the trials were due to last for three years perhaps more consultation could be taken into account over the next two years of the trials.

But he didn't believe a corporation funding the referendum would be a good idea as it might be seen as influencing the democratic process.

Other concerns were raised by Graham Game, of the Essex Naturalist Trust, who said some people he had spoken to had reacted with alarm that the site chosen was next to a nature reserve in the village.

Mr West said the sites chosen for the crop trials had been well researched before the trials had been given the go-ahead.

He added scientific evidence had shown the nature reserve would not be harmed by the trials.

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