Government’s £20m annual fund for farmers could create more rural parking spaces
Farmers to be paid to pave paradise: £20m annual fund could create more parking spaces under plan to give walkers better access to the country
- Ministers will fund farmers in protected landscapes to help nature and people
- Projects include creating ponds, improving public access or building parking
- Yorkshire Wolds and Cheshire Sandstone Ridge will be considered for AONBs
- Existing Surrey Hills and Chilterns AONBs could be extended under proposals
Farmers in England will be paid £20million to pave over agricultural land under plans to give walkers better access to the countryside.
Radical new proposals unveiled by Environment Secretary George Eustice today will see farmers and landowners encouraged to build parking spaces, ponds and wetlands, or care for historic features.
They also mean the Yorkshire Wolds and the Cheshire Sandstone Ridge will be considered for protected status as areas of outstanding natural beauty, while the existing Surrey Hills and Chilterns AONBs could be extended.
The Government said the four areas being considered could deliver more than 40 per cent of the additional 1,500 square miles needed to meet the UK’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of its land by 2030.
But conservationists warn much of the existing protected areas are national parks and AONBs which do not necessarily deliver for nature, with many of them suffering from overgrazing, poor management or intensive agriculture.
They are now calling for urgent action and more resources to improve the natural world across existing protected areas.
It comes as EU subsidies to farmers and landowners in England reduce over the next seven years and will be replaced by UK grants and top-ups where they will be expected to do more for smaller hand-outs.
The Yorkshire Wolds will be considered for status as an area of outstanding natural beauty
Cheshire Sandstone Ridge will be considered for status as an AONB under the new plans
Emma Marsh, director of RSPB England, described the announcement on the potential new areas as simply ‘warm words’, adding: ‘Wildlife isn’t even thriving in our existing protected landscapes.
‘If any protected landscapes – existing or new – are to be able to deliver land ‘well-managed for nature’, they need to be resourced and set up to do so.’
The Yorkshire Wolds is an area of gently rolling hills, which extends south from the Yorkshire coast to the shadow of the Humber Bridge, and has long inspired artist David Hockney, whose recent works depict its changing seasons.
It is home to Fotherdale Farm in Thixendale, where two kestrels and their six hungry chicks have been watched by tens of thousands of people on a camera in their nest box.
Meanwhile Cheshire Sandstone Ridge offers expansive views, exposed reddish-pink Triassic sandstone and the remains of Iron Age hill forts.
It also contains ancient woodland and the remnants of a Royal Hunting Forest.
Being designated an AONB gives landscapes greater protection, with local authorities required to make sure all decisions, from planning permission to installing telecommunications cables, take the conservation of the area into account.
Announcing plans to boost nature and public access in protected areas, Mr Eustice said: ‘We have an opportunity to create a new chapter for our protected landscapes.
‘The work that we are going to take forward will contribute to our commitment to protect 30 per cent of our land by 2030, and boost biodiversity, while designating more areas of the country for their natural beauty.
‘Our farming in protected landscapes programme will provide additional investment to allow farmers to work in partnership with our National Park Authorities and AONB teams to improve public access.’
It comes in response to the Glover Review, commissioned by the Government, which recommended ‘national landscapes’ should have a new mission to enhance nature, create wilder areas and deal with climate change.
It also set out proposals to increase access to protected landscapes for people and create new designated areas. The Government has said it will respond in full to the review later in the year.
Farming was a key issue in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, as farmers and landowners received subsidies from the bloc through its Common Agricultural Policy.
Now the UK has left the EU, it has started the seven-year process of weaning itself off the EU’s enormous agricultural subsidy programme.
Farmers will increasingly receive grants through the Environmental Land Management scheme. However, subsidies will come to be based around the concept of ‘natural capital’.
The existing Surrey Hills AONB could also be extended under the proposals announced today
Another AONB in the Chilterns could be widened under plans being put forward by Ministers
Instead of receiving the CAP’s Basic Payment scheme support for acres farmed, farmers and landowners will have to earn rewards for delivering ‘public goods’ suchg as creating woodland or improving water quality.
Philip Wynn, agricultural consultant and interim managing director of James Dyson’s Dyson Farming company, told the FT that farmers will increasingly be required to do a lot more for less money.
‘The reality is the very best you’re going to receive is 50-60 per cent [of the Basic Payment scheme] but you’re going to have to provide quite a lot in terms of public goods to achieve that, and for lots of people it’ll be more like 30 per cent,’ he said.
In response to the Government announcement, Julian Glover, who led the review, said: ‘Our national landscapes are the soul of England, beautiful, much-loved, and there for all of us, but they are also under pressure.
‘We need to do a lot more for nature and more for people, too.
‘Our report set out a plan for a brighter, greener future and I’m delighted that words are now being followed by action.’
NFU environment forum chair Richard Bramley told MailOnline: ‘Farming is at the heart of all activity in our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).
‘That’s why this new Farming in Protected Landscapes programme¹ need to be simple and flexible and work with those individual farm businesses in mind.
‘The NFU will work with Natural England and consult with our members on the four² areas being considered for new or extended AONB status, making sure that viable farm businesses are at the heart of the decision-making process so that our work to protect and enhance our valuable landscapes, which millions of people visit and enjoy every year, continues.
‘As we say in the NFU’s Landscapes and Access report, whether it is incentives to manage bigger hedgerows, plant more trees, or conserve carbon through the soil, we do need to see government policies that work together to support the delivery of agriculture’s net zero ambition and to ensure we have farmed landscapes that can both feed the nation and thrive with wildlife.’
Dr Richard Benwell, chief executive of the coalition of conservation groups Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: ‘The creation of new AONBs is excellent, but it must be accompanied by stronger duties and resources for environmental improvement to bring the landscapes to life with nature.’
He said three quarters of sites of special scientific interest, which are protected for nature, were in poor condition within designated landscapes.
More ambition was needed to fill protected landscapes with wildlife and ensure they play their part in tackling climate change, he urged.
‘We need quick action now to complete the designations and to strengthen the environmental purposes and resources of AONBs.
Environment Secretary George Eustice, pictured at Downing Street in London last November
The 47 AONBs in Britain – including 34 in England, five in Wales and eight in Northern Ireland
‘Only then can Government reliably include these places in its promise to protect 30 per cent of the land for nature.’
Jo Smith, chief executive of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust said the proposed designations ‘will not magically help meet the target of 30 per cent of land where nature can thrive’.
‘Instead, what’s needed is urgent action, political will and more resources, to repair and heal the natural world across the National Parks that we already have,’ she said.
‘If this Government is serious about its ambition to leave the environment in a better state for the next generation, it must properly fund meaningful action to restore habitats across our protected landscapes,’ she added.
Crispin Truman, chief executive of countryside charity the CPRE, said: ‘We know that not all of the land within existing National Parks and AONBs is effectively managed for nature.
‘Our evidence also shows that a developer-led planning system with centralised housing targets has driven up pressure on these nationally important areas, particularly in the south.
‘So there is a long way to go before these areas help meet the government’s target to protect 30 per cent of land for nature by 2030.’
Meanwhile the Environment Agency has announced changes to water abstraction licences held by 20 businesses in the Ant Valley on the Norfolk Broads.
These could see fish, birds and plants benefit from up to three billion litres of water being returned to the environment.
Environmental bodies including the WWF and Woodland Trust have also described a ‘visionary’ new project in the Yorkshire Dales called Wild Ingleborough.
This will see the restoration of peatland and the expansion of native woodland and scrub, in a bid to remove and store carbon and tackle climate change.
