Efforts to eradicate the foot-and-mouth virus from farms in the so-called Penrith spur are set to be dramatically stepped up with the Government expected to announce radical new measures to fight the outbreak.

DEFRA has asked the Government for special powers to declare a Specially Infected Area around the disease cluster which has now seen stock slaughtered at hundreds of farms south of Penrith in towns and villages such as Shap, Orton, Crosby Ravensworth, Appleby and Kirkby Stephen.

A series of disinfection stations, manned 24-hours a day by contractors working for DEFRA, will guard roads out of the area in an attempt to stop the disease in its tracks.

And work will start today (Friday) on establishing one such site on the A685 outside Tebay, and another will follow shortly on the M6 slip road at the Shap junction.

Both are designed to prevent the disease reaching the Kendal area.

Another will be set up in the Lune Valley to protect Sedbergh and the Howgills and the others will be in the Kirkby Stephen area.

Within the 115 square mile zone, the police and DEFRA will mount joint patrols with the power to stop vehicles and, if need be, serve the drivers with special orders forcing their vehicles through rigorous cleaning and disinfection procedures.

Ray Anderson, director of operations at DEFRA, in Carlisle, said: "Obviously break out from the Spur is our top concern.

We want to make sure that any vehicle travelling out of the area where the infection is active is properly cleansed and disinfected." He said the new package of measures was a "a major stepping up of the campaign against foot-and-mouth."

"We are doing it because in the next five or six weeks we have a real opportunity to stop the disease during the long summer days while the weather remains warm.

If we can deal with it now there is a better chance of eradicating it than in the shorter days of autumn," he said.

The tough new measures come in what has been the area's worst week since the foot-and-mouth crisis began in February.

There have been 17 fresh cases confirmed in the area around Orton, Kirkby Stephen and Appleby and Crosby Ravensworth - the village of Shap was hit especially hard.

On Tuesday alone, eight new cases were confirmed prompting Mike Sanderson, group secretary of Appleby NFU, to brand it "Black Tuesday for Shap and Crosby Ravensworth".

He said the people of Shap were shell-shocked by the arrival of the disease in their village.

Of around 600 farms in the area covered by the Penrith Spur, there are now 130 infected premises, but more than 400 farms in the area have seen stock slaughtered because of the virus.

Yesterday (Thursday) Mr Sanderson said: " The last farm left in Crosby Ravensworth went down today and now there is nothing." Of DEFRA's new package of measures, he said: "It is small comfort to us sitting in the middle of it, but I would not want to see this disease move into Kendal and Sedbergh."

Earlier this week DEFRA announced a major programme of random blood testing of sheep on the 360 farms in the area which still have stock.

Up to 84,000 animals are to be tested for the virus in an attempt to find out whether there is latent infection in the sheep population.

Meanwhile, tourism bosses were celebrating the lifting of restrictions across a large part of the Lake District National Park.

Sixty-five per cent of all footpaths in the park are now open to the public and the hope is that the improved access has come in time to entice tourists to take a break in the Lakes this summer to help boost trade which has slumped since the start of the crisis.

lDEFRA minister Alun Michael who was in the area this week was today (Friday) expected to announce the appointment of a foot-and-mouth supremo for Cumbria to oversee the fight against the disease.

Mr Michael was unable to give any clue as to when the cleansing and disinfection operations suspended by Tony Blair last week would resume.