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:

• AB1 Nectar flower mix
• AB3 Beetle banks
• AB4 Skylark plots
• AB5 Nesting plots for lapwing and stone curlew
• AB6 Enhanced overwinter stubble
• AB8 Flower rich margins and plots
• AB9 Winter bird food
• AB11 Cultivated areas for arable plants
• AB15 Two year sown legume fallow
• AB16 Autumn sown bumblebird mix
• HS2 Take historic and archaeological features out of cultivation
• OP2 Organic wild bird seed mixture
• SW1 4 to 6 metre buffer strip on cultivated land
• SW3 In-field grass strips
• SW4 12 to 24 metre watercourse buffer strips on cultivated land
• SW6 Winter cover crops
• SW12 Making space for water (Higher Tier only)
• WD3 Woodland edges on arable land
• WT2 Buffering in-field ponds and ditches on arable land

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.

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

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.

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.