Warwickshire farrier warns trail hunting ban will stretch police further as rural crime bites
A Warwickshire farrier has hit out at the government's planned ban on trail hunting, warning that overstretched police should be focused on tackling the rural crime epidemic hitting farms and communities across the county.
George Dancer, a farrier working in Warwickshire whose livelihood depends in part on the horses and equestrian community that trail hunting sustains, said the proposals "betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of rural priorities".
“Rural communities like ours in Warwickshire are watching farm theft, quad bike raids and livestock crime get worse over the past decade,” he said. “We need officers focused on those real concerns, not in our fields chasing after people on horseback. Calling trail hunting a policing priority when so many other issues are facing our communities shows this is the wrong priority at the wrong time.”
His warning comes as the government prepares to open a public consultation on banning trail hunting across England and Wales. The move was announced in December 2025 as part of the government's Animal Welfare Strategy and the consultation is expected imminently.
Campaigners say that trail hunting is a 'smokescreen' for hunt organisations to carry on killing foxes and "get around" the current ban on fox hunting.
The rural crime backdrop Mr Dancer describes is borne out by the most recent national figures. NFU Mutual's 2025 Rural Crime Report found that rural crime cost the UK an estimated £44.1 million in 2024. Livestock theft alone cost £3.4 million, while quad bike and ATV theft cost a further £2.7 million, with organised gangs increasingly targeting isolated farms for high-value equipment. Of NFU Mutual agents surveyed, 92% said rural crime was disrupting farming in their area, and 96% said it was negatively affecting farmers' mental wellbeing.
The Midlands recorded the highest total cost of rural crime of any English region in 2024 at £8.1 million, though that also represented the largest fall, down 31% from £11.7 million the year before, following coordinated action between police, farmers and rural crime units.
It is against that backdrop that Dancer's objection to the trail hunting ban carries its sharpest edge.
"Hunt riders, staff, and followers cover farmland three or more days a week through the season," he said.
"They know the farms, the lanes, and the landowners across their territory. In Warwickshire, as in other rural counties, that network has long served an informal but real function as an additional presence on the land, one that spots unfamiliar vehicles and reports suspicious activity of exactly the kind that rural crime units depend on community intelligence to act against."
Mr Dancer said the ban would also have direct economic consequences for working people in the county's equestrian supply chain. Farriers, livery yard operators, equine vets, feed merchants and saddlers across Warwickshire carry trade tied, directly or indirectly, to the mounted field.
The Countryside Alliance, which opposes the ban, says trail hunting contributes more than £100 million to the rural economy nationally and supports an estimated 500 direct jobs.