A Westfield resident has been in touch after seeing a large, black animal as she looked out of her kitchen window over the valley on New Year’s Day, Monday, 1st January, at around 3.30 p.m.

She said: “It moved like lightning, I didn’t have time to grab binoculars or a camera – but I know it wasn’t a dog, it was too slender and too quick. My eyesight is perfect, and I know what I saw.”

Suspected sightings of big cats in the countryside stem from the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976, which made it illegal to keep untamed pets. It is thought as a consequence that some were abandoned to the wild.