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An abandoned factory 'undoubtedly' contains traces of mad cow disease that risks infecting people, a scientist has warned. 

Thruxted Mill, between Ashford and Cantebury, was one of five sites in the UK where cows with the fatal brain disease were destroyed.

It has since remained derelict for more than a decade but housing developers have expressed interest in building 20 homes on the 'dreadful' horror movie-like setting.

And so-called urban explorers — those who visit manmade structures, usually places that are abandoned or hidden — have posted online about going to the site. 

But Professor Alan Colchester, a neurologist from the University of Kent, warned the area is a 'biohazard' and likely contains large quantities of contaminated material.

So 'nothing should be done' to encourage people visiting the mill or surrounding woodlands and there may even be a case for tarmacking it over completely, he said.

Mad cow disease, medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a brain disease that can infect cattle, sheep and goats. 

If infected meat is eaten by humans, it can result in serious illness and death.

In people, it can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) — which causes loss of intellect and memory, changes in personality and progressive loss of brain function. 

BSE, which caused 30,000 cases among animals in Britain at the height of the epidemic in the early 90s, was last .

And there has only been five cases in animals in the UK since 2014, none of which were destined for the human food chain. 

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