ANTI-BLOOD sports campaigners demonstrated outside North West Water's Bolton offices yesterday in protest against the company's land being used by huntsmen.

The demonstration by the North West Campaign Against Blood sports launched a new campaign to have the Bury-based Holcombe Harriers banned from all the water company's land in the Rivington area.

Campaigners claim the water company is supporting hunting by allowing the Holcombe Harriers to meet and parade at Rivington Barn every Boxing Day. The demonstration outside the North West Water depot on Crompton Way was timed to coincide with a massive pro-hunting demonstration in London yesterday. A spokesman for the Manchester-based organisation said: "We believe that the parade is an integral part of the hunt and find it even more surprising that North West Water claim to have banned hunting on their land 15 years ago.

"We intend this to be a sustained campaign and will not give up until the hunt is banned from Rivington."

A spokeswoman from North West Water said that access was "not encouraged" on land under their direct control. But she added that established tenants on the land can grant consent to huntsmen. Meanwhile, campaigners from all over the North-west will converge on Manchester tomorrow for a conference to discuss the ever growing problems caused by waste.

The conference, at the Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester, starts 10am and is open to the public and all those interested in waste, land fill, recycling or incineration.

Charles Secret, director of Friends of the Earth, will be among the speakers.

He said: "We live in a consumer made society. Levels of consumption and waste are utterly unsustainable, and in environmental, economic and social terms, dumping waste in landfill sites or burning in incinerators is no solution."

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