Environmental Land Management Scheme and the Landscape Recovery Scheme

The Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) has been introduced as a replacement for the Basic Payment Scheme that is being phased out in England.

ELMS will be constituted of a number of schemes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship and Landscape Recovery. The purpose of the various schemes is to attract a wide range of landowners, tenants and land managers to deliver multiple environmental benefits.

The Landscape Recovery Scheme focuses on landscape scale projects using a blend of public and private funding to deliver long term environmental and climate outcomes. The second round of the scheme will accept projects that exceed 500 hectares which can encourage collaboration between various landowners to deliver a range of benefits.

In round two there is a limit of 25 projects as there will be a complex development phase that could take up to two years to complete before moving onto project implementation.

The development phase of the project will be funded by Defra to prepare for implementation and the activities involved could include feasibility studies, obtaining consents, monitoring and evaluation plans and developing a bespoke funding arrangement that includes private funding.

The expectation is that the project will continue for at least 20 years in order to deliver the desired environmental outcomes. Defra will look to safeguard the length of the project by utilising conservation covenants or creating designations. n

Christina Smith 01292 268 181 christina.smith@galbraithgroup.com

More details can be found at: https://www.rsabi.org.uk/ n

Kitty Campbell 07385 930 697

kitty.campbell@galbraithgroup.com