Marks and Spencer has taken the action with immediate effect after the string of one of its balloons wrapped around the neck of a lamb on Ramblewood Farm, Green Lane, Pott Row.

The "green" supermarket, which will start charging customers 5p for plastic bags from May 6 in a bid to eliminate waste, told the Lynn News it was "extremely sorry" to hear of the incident.

It has also apologied to farmer Richard Fulcher, who discovered his lamb in distress last Friday morning.

The lamb, which had only been born the previous night, luckily survived but is now having to be bottle-fed.

Mr Fulcher hit out at waste being allowed to litter the countryside, and said what happened was "diabolical".

"I went to feed the sheep. A couple were due to have lambs," he said following his discovery.

LAMBS

He immediately saw that two baby lambs had been born to one ewe – but could hear another one.

"I then saw this lamb which had just been born with this balloon," added Mr Fulcher, who said the string had become entangled round the lamb's foot and neck and it couldn't stand.

Mr Fulcher saw at once that the balloon was from Marks and Spencer as it had the M &S logo and "Simply Food" written on it.

He said there had been much publicity in the news and on television recently about how discarded waste, particularly plastic, could harm animals, and he wanted something done about it.

A spokesman for Marks and Spencer said: "We were extremely sorry to hear of this very distressing incident and have apologised to Mr Fulcher directly.

"Over the last year we have been phasing out the use of promotional balloons in line with our environmental commitments but we will now ban their use with immediate effect to ensure that this cannot happen again."