Guidance: Countryside Stewardship manual for 1 January 2016 agreements

Updated: Passed 10 July deadline for late revenue claims and amendments.

Use the manual to understand the rules and conditions that apply to Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreements.

Use the options and supplements, and capital items documents:

  • to understand the rules for each option, supplement and capital item
  • for advice on carrying out options, supplements and capital items

Use the terms and conditions document to understand the rules of the scheme.

Use the record keeping documents to understand what evidence you need to keep to show you’re meeting scheme requirements.

Use the CS forms to support your agreement.

Overlap of CS options with Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs)

In 2018, you can overlap the following CS options with EFAs declared on your Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) 2018 application:

Your CS options that share land with BPS claims (known as ‘double funding’) will receive a reduced payment rate. You can find the rate in the page for each listed option, under ‘How much will be paid’, and in the manual (section 3.14).

From 1 January 2019, you will not be able to overlap the 19 CS ‘double funding’ options with EFAs declared for BPS. You can place the options and EFAs in the same land parcel but they cannot overlap.

You can include hedges in both CS options and EFAs without payment deductions.

Revenue claims

The deadline for Natural England to receive late revenue claims and amendments was 10 July 2018. Natural England will not accept any further revenue claims in 2018.

Contact

Contact Natural England to get help with your agreement.

Enquiries

Natural England
County Hall, Spetchley Road

Worcester

WR5 2NP

Opening times: 8:30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays)

Find out about call charges at www.gov.uk/call-charges.




Collection: Countryside Stewardship forms

Updated: Minor and temporary adjustment form added.

See the main Countryside Stewardship page for information about the scheme.




Collection: Bovine TB epidemiology and surveillance in Great Britain

Updated: New documents available for 2017




Official Statistics: Butterflies in the wider countryside UK

Updated: Updated indicators published for 1976 to 2017

These indicators on butterflies in the United Kingdom contribute to a suite of indicators due to be updated later this year (the UK Biodiversity Indicators); earlier data availability allows their release ahead of that publication. Two measures of annual butterfly population abundance are presented: the first for specialist butterflies (species strongly associated with semi-natural habitats such as unimproved grassland) and the second for butterflies found in both semi-natural habitats and the wider countryside. The measures are multi-species indices compiled by Butterfly Conservation (BC), the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) from data collated through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UK BMS) and the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS).
The indicators use data from butterfly transect sites on farmland and in woodland from the UK BMS and additionally randomly selected farmland plots from the WCBS. Further details of the methods used to compile the indicators and assess change can be found on the UK BMS website. More information about this indicator is available on the JNCC website.

Defra statistics: environment

You can also contact us via Twitter: https://twitter.com/DefraStats




Official Statistics: Butterflies in the wider countryside England

Updated: Updated indicators published 1990 to 2017

These statistics on widespread butterflies on farmland and in woodland in England, contribute to a suite of indicators due to be updated later this year (the Biodiversity 2020 indicators for England); earlier data availability allows their release ahead of that publication. The measures for butterflies on farmland and in woodland are multi-species indices compiled by Butterfly Conservation (BC) and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) from data collated through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) and the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS). The indicators use data from butterfly transect sites on farmland and in woodland from the UKBMS and additionally randomly selected farmland plots from the WCBS. Further details of the methods used to compile the indicators and assess change can be found on the UK BMS website. More information about farmland and woodland indicators is available on the England biodiversity indicators homepage.

Defra statistics: environment

You can also contact us via Twitter: https://twitter.com/DefraStats