Avon and Somerset Police have confirmed that there will be no NFU presence in police control rooms when this year's badger culls go ahead.

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Revelations that cull company and NFU representatives were present in the police's base of operations during the 2013 'pilot culls' caused outrage, when it emerged that cull company representatives had been invited into the operational control room and allegedly shouted over officers during an altercation in Somerset.

Superintendant Kevin Instance, the force's silver commander, guaranteed anti-cull protestors that there would be no such representatives in the police control room this year, though he defended the decision to allow their presence last year, claiming that it was taken for public safety reasons.

Discussing the relationship between the police and NFU during the 2013 cull at a public meeting between Gloucestershire Police Commissioner Martin Serl and senior police officers last year, Serl said "It didn't come across well. It did rather look like you were doing the NFU's work for them."

An internal police report, leaked to the Independent in March, found that officers in Somerset had taken a "blinkered approach" to dealing with protesters, and had sided unreasonably with cull contractors on one occasion in particular.

Commenting on the policing of the highly controversial cull, Supt Kevin Instance, who commanded officers policing the cull in Somerset in 2013, said on Thursday, "Last year… There was lots of uncertainty on how the pilot would develop and what issues the police would face. Maximising public safety and having the situational awareness of what was happening on the ground were the key parts of my planning.

"Having now experienced the cull activity and having debriefed and consulted extensively, I feel that I am now able to build a command and control arrangement that will not include having representatives from the cull company and NFU in the police control room without compromising safety.

"We will continue to listen and work with the community and all interested parties to make sure that any future pilot culls are conducted safely," Supt Instance said.

Meanwhile, pro-cull groups have claimed that preliminary findings from research being carried out in Cheshire have vindicated their calls for continued culling of badgers, though protesters maintain that the cull policy has scant scientific support. Findings from tests on roadkill badgers by a team at Liverpool University's Leahurst Veterinary Campus, part of a scheme backed by the NFU and local Wildlife Trust, suggest one in four badgers in the region could be carrying TB.

Even so, comprehensive mapping of the disease's spread throughout England over the last 15 years, released by researchers from the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge in July, showed that cattle are predominantly the cause of transmission between farms. The experts said bTB is a livestock disease that appears to have crossed out into the environmental reservoir. The bacterium can infect a range of wild and domestic animals.   

Earlier this week, licensing body Natural England wrote to inform cull companies in Gloucestershire and Somerset that they can resume culling, though a High Court legal challenge launched by the badger cull in the spring is ongoing.