Hedges and EFA

One of the major remaining unknowns in the English Greening rules is the treatment of hedges under the Ecological Focus Areas rules.  The Guidance issued by DEFRA last month was notably silent on things like the definition of a hedge, and how hedges that do not border arable land on both sides would be treated.  Further information was promised in October.

However, as set out in the previous article, the Welsh Government has just released its greening guidance and this contains rather more detail.  Obviously, each administration does not have to implement the same rules.  However, all national Governments will be taking advice from the EU Commission on what is permissible, so it seems reasonably likely that they will arrive at the same outcomes.

A brief synopsis of the Welsh guidance as it may relate to England is as follows;

• the hedge must have a continuous minimum length of 20m to count towards EFA
• there must be no gaps in the canopy – the end of a continuous length is defined by any gap in the canopy, including gateways
• the maximum width of a hedge is 10m; there is no minimum width as long as the canopy is continuous
• newly planted hedges will not be eligible until their growth is such they meet the minimum size requirements
• there are no specific requirements on the species within the hedge
• the hedge must be on, or adjacent to arable land, which is taken as physically touching the arable land on its longest side
• if there is a feature between the hedge and the arable land then this means the hedge will not be eligible for EFA.  Examples of such features include ditches and ineligible field tracks.  The point on ditches seems quite key in that hedges and ditches usually gotogether in traditional British landscapes.  If the hedge is next to an arable field on its other side, the presence of a ditch will not matter.  But there are likely to be a number of situations where this rule will knock significant lengths of hedgerows out of EFA 
• where the hedge is between an arable field and a permanent pasture field then the hedge will be eligible and the whole hedge will generate EFA in the normal way
• where the hedge is between two different claimants, then it will be split 50:50 between them – i.e. each 1m run of hedge would generate 5m² EFA each rather than the usual 10m²
• there is no mention of how roadside hedges are to be treated

We would emphasise once again that there is no guarantee DEFRA will follow these rules.  However, in the absence of any other information, it may make sense to presume they will apply until we hear otherwise.