The tourist industry in Settle is set to lose up to £80 million this summer because of the foot and mouth crisis.

Craven District Council chiefs are resigned to losing most of the summer trade, which last year amounted to £84 million.

Fifteen per cent of businesses in the area had applied for Government help before the disease was discovered and the spate of cases will see that figure rocket in the coming weeks.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) has now drawn a box around Settle in which all movement of animals, except certain cases within a farm, has been halted.

The boundary stretches west to Clitheroe, south to the top of Skipton, east to Buckden and north to Ingleton.

Rachel Mann, chief executive of the Council, said: "Tourism is effectively wiped out for the summer and I don't think that's over-dramatising the subject.

"We are trying to communicate with businesses and have set up a meeting for Friday. We need to think about recovery packages."

Despite the restrictions on movement, much of the area is still open for tourists but people are asked to respect any signs.

Dr Steve Hunter, MAFF operations manager for Yorkshire and the Humber, revealed that in one flock of sheep on a farm in Malham Tarn the disease had been spreading for up to three weeks before it was picked up.

He said: "It was only when we did blood sampling that we realised the disease was there."

Twenty-seven cases have been unearthed so far, with 12,700 cattle, 85,000 sheep, 85 pigs and 17 goats slaughtered in the Settle area.

These include the 468 accidentally killed at a farm in Otterburn, near Settle.

Dr Hunter said he had personally apologised to the farmer for the mistake but added tests on the animals had since proved positive.

l Bradford was declared free from foot and mouth on Friday and the prospect of footpaths being reopened will come later this week when the Council will conduct its own tests.

More Foot and Mouth information