English Environmental Stewardship Update

Natural England has published more details on the New Environmental Land Management Scheme (NELMS). Transitional arrangements remain as we have previously published, some agreements will be available but under strict guidelines. It should be noted that DEFRA has recommended that applications are submitted by July 2014. This is so Natural England has time to process the agreements for a 1st December 2014 start date.

The aim of the new scheme (yet to be named) will be to support land managers to deliver multiple public benefits from each agreement. Biodiversity will be the top priority although the scheme aims to provide maximum opportunity to deliver biodiversity, water quality and flooding benefits together.

Unlike the current system the schemes will not be underpinned and there will be no separate organic or upland scheme- relevant options will be available across the board. There will no longer be a points entry threshold i.e. the 30 points per hectare required for ELS. The new scheme will move away from the ‘broad and shallow’ principles and focus on a more targeted, competitive approach. The scheme will consist of three main elements, each will be competitive and successful applicants will be those that deliver the best value for money and greatest opportunity for achieving environmental outcomes:

• ‘Upper Tier’ – similar process to current HLS but by invitation only, 5 year agreement term (although this could be 10-20 years for certain objectives).
• ‘Mid-Tier’- online application process, 5 year agreement term with potential 2 year extension.
• Small Scale Capital Grants – online applications, short agreements (1-2 years). This could include items such as hedgerow restoration, gapping up, stone wall restoration and bat boxes.

Much discussion has been made around how stewardship agreements will interact with the Ecological Focus Areas under Greening. The DEFRA publication states “we strongly advise all our agreement holders to study the information closely when it becomes available as it might require adjustments to some Environmental Stewardship payments.”  Although this does not provide a great deal more clarity we should all be aware that ES payments could be reduced in order to avoid double funding.