Petition against breeding centre for animal experiments signed by 31,000

The signatures were raised on an online petition after a company owned by US firm Marshall BioResources applied to build the facility at Grimston, in Holderness, where the dogs were bred until 2010.

Proposals for a larger facility were rejected by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles last year.

Local campaigner Deborah Minns and a small group of supporters will be delivering the petition to County Hall in Beverley on Monday, where councillors are due to decide the application later this year. A separate petition by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection has raised nearly 13,0000 signatures.

Opponents say narrow, winding lanes round the village won’t cope with traffic and claim Humberside Police may not be able to handle the added policing burden. They also claim the wider medical industry “is moving away from the animal model – towards human-based science” making facilities like Grimston “redundant”. However developers argue that animals are “a small but important” part of biomedical research and will reduce reliance on imported animals.