BILL Chapple, the affable deputy leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, has been cast as one of the villains in the long-running saga of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

It is all because of Cllr Chapple's high profile in the battle of wills between the Government and local councils about whether footpaths in country areas should be reopened.

With the holiday season now about to start, the Government is keen to get paths reopened.

Cllr Chapple, who says foot-and-mouth disease doesn't recognise holiday dates, has become the person most likely to be interviewed when people want someone to make the case for keeping them closed.

On Wednesday, he was summoned to London by Government minister, Beverley Hughes, who only last Friday was made footpaths overlord and charged with getting as many paths as possible open in time for Easter.

MP Peter Bradley put out a press release from Millbank, Labour's HQ, saying: "Some Conservatives believe it is in their party's interests to talk up the crisis, while most of us are trying to protect the livelihoods and jobs of the people who make up the rural economy.

"When the dust settles Conservative politicians like Cllr Chapple will have a lot to answer for."

Kate Ashbrook, footpaths officer for Bucks Ramblers Association, who wants paths opened up, says the county council is taking no notice of government vets' advice.

She agreed most local authorities had kept their footpaths closed but she said Buckinghamshire was one of the worst.

"They are ignoring the advice of government vets who made it clear that walkers are not responsible for spreading it providing they follow the code."

Bucks County Council decided to close its footpaths at the beginning of the outbreak. The county has remained disease free.

Cllr Chapple who has been on national and local radio and TV and been grilled by the likes of Jeremy Paxman and the Today programme, said there were 64,000 miles of footpaths in the UK and only 6,000 miles were open, so Bucks wasn't the only place not reopening its paths.

And in fact the county was reviewing the situation, though that message was being ignored.

"We are not going to say we will not reopen anything, but we will look at them individually."

Buckinghamshire County Council leader David Shakespeare said TV and radio were putting out the wrong message about the county's policy, which was to look at requests to reopen paths and do so if the risk was negligible. The council was also carrying out its own review.

"Nick Brown, agriculture minister, said today we must not let our guard drop and that is what we are doing.

"We haven't got foot and mouth and we want to keep it that way."

Wednesday's head to head with the minister turned out to be an anticlimax. Mr Shakespeare said media hype and the fact they were a Conservative council had given her the wrong idea about what Bucks was doing. They had put her in the picture.

"She then suggested we were doing all the things a good county council should be doing and said we should share our best practice with others."

But there would be no sudden change of policy from the council.