DEAD animals could litter New Forest roads for days on end because of new European red tape, it is feared.

Ponies and cattle killed in road accidents could be left by the road for up to four days at a time because the incinerator currently used to dispose of carcasses does not meet new European Union standards.

Brussels bureaucrats have ruled that the emissions being released from the incinerator are too harmful for the environment.

Carcasses would only be removed on two days a week under the proposed alternative collection scheme.

New Forest Tory MP Julian Lewis said: "This is another fine Euro mess the government has got us into."

In order to bring the ailing furnace up to standard, the Hunt Kennels, the body responsible for collection and destruction of fallen stock, must buy a new part. However, the manufacturers are unable to supply the part until five months after the new EU regulation takes effect in January 2005.

Representatives of the Kennels have asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to allow use of the incinerator, based at the Hunt Kennels near Lyndhurst, until the part becomes available next May.

If the department rules against the plea, the Kennels will be forced to temporarily abandon its fallen stock collection duties. Instead commoners, who own the Forest's animals, would be forced to sign up to a costly national collection scheme, which would visit the Forest only twice a week, according to Richard Manley, chairman of New Forest Commoners' Defence Association.

He said: "I think Defra have got to allow us to continue using the incinerator. The commoning economy is so fragile at the moment.

"I think the government are very well aware of that. There are such exceptional circumstances in the New Forest.

"Otherwise the reality is we're going to have a fallen stock service which only works twice a week. There's going to be items of fallen stock left on the Forest potentially for up to four days. I find it farcical."