Section 7 - Additional requirements that you must agree to
- 7.1 General conditions on all HLS agreement land
- 7.2 Grassland management
- 7.3 Public rights of way and access
- 7.4 Capital works
- 7.5 Other funding
- 7.6 Publicity
The basic scheme rules, legal requirements and conditions for payment are set out in section 5 of the ELS or OELS handbook. Where these requirements include a reference to a five-year period, the HLS requirement is for a ten-year period. Because of the more complicated nature of HLS options, there will be some additional requirements which will apply to the HLS part of your agreement, as follows.
7.1 General conditions on all HLS agreement land
In addition to the Standards of Good Farming Practice referred to in section 5 and appendix 4 of the ELS or OELS handbook, you must also follow the general conditions for management of your HLS agreement land as set out below, unless specifically stated otherwise in your agreement:
- Do not apply lime.
- On the conventional land that you manage: do not apply pesticides, except for the control of spear thistle, creeping thistle, curled dock, broad-leaved dock, common ragwort, nettles or other undesirable species named in your agreement. Herbicides may only be applied to these species by weedwiper or by spot treatment. On the land in your organic unit, please refer to section 5.1 of your OELS handbook.
- Do not allow your agreement land to be levelled, infilled, used for the storage or dumping of materials or used by motor vehicles or machinery (except where necessary for the management of the land), if this is likely to cause long-term damage from rutting or compaction of the soil, or otherwise damage areas being managed under the scheme.
- Do not light fires (including burning brash or cuttings) where they could cause damage to features of archaeological or historic interest, or within ten metres of tree canopies or on any areas managed for their wildlife habitat interest. (This does not restrict your ability to manage heathland vegetation by controlled burning in compliance with the Heather and Grass Burning Regulations 1986 and accompanying Code.)
- Do not allow your agreement land to be used for organised games or sports, camping or caravanning, shows or sales where this is likely to damage areas being managed for their wildlife habitat interest or features of archaeological or historic interest; where this is likely to cause excessive or unreasonable disturbance to wildlife being encouraged under your agreement; or where this would cause unreasonable restriction to Public Rights of Way or 'access land' as designated under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
- Do not carry out or permit metal detecting on the archaeological sites on your holding identified in your Farm Environment Plan, unless agreed with your RDS adviser in writing. On Scheduled Monuments, a licence is required from English Heritage before metal detecting can take place. Detecting without such a licence is an offence. On SSSIs, where actions resulting from metal detecting (e.g. digging or vegetation disturbance) are listed as 'operations likely to damage the special interest' of your SSSI, you are required to give written notice to English Nature of these operations and can only proceed once you have received written consent.
- As you are required to protect and maintain archaeological sites and other features over the entire area under agreement, you must ensure that no damage is caused to these features wherever metal detecting takes place (authorised or otherwise).
7.2 Grassland management
If your agreement contains grazing management measures, you must maintain your current areas of temporary and permanent grassland in accordance with Part 6 of your agreement, for the duration of your agreement. A maximum stocking density will also be given and it will be a requirement that you must not over-graze or under-utilise any of the grassland.
7.3 Public rights of way and access
Requirements relating to public rights of way on your land are set out in section 5.3 of your ELS handbook or section 5.4 of your OELS handbook.
In addition, the following conditions also need to be observed:
- You must fulfil your responsibilities relevant to any land on the holding classified as 'open access land' on a conclusive map published in accordance with Part 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
- You must allow any existing informal public access on the holding to continue.
- If your HLS agreement provides for payments for access, you must ensure that you have public liability insurance adequate for the type of access provided. You will be breaching your agreement if we find that:
- there was already public access to the agreement land before your agreement was signed, and
- we were not fully informed about this existing access.
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7.4 Capital works
If there are any capital works to be done you must:
- complete them to the specification set out in Part 5 of your agreement,
and
- follow the timetable in Part 4 of your agreement.
Throughout the period covered by your agreement, you must maintain the capital works to a standard that satisfies us. This includes replacement as necessary.
If your agreement replaces an existing or expired CSS or ESA agreement, you must take all reasonable care to protect, for the duration of the new agreement, any capital works which you have completed and for which you have been paid under that agreement.
7.5 Other funding
You must not accept any other EU funding or enter into another agreement which applies to the agreement land or capital works covered by your agreement without our written consent. (EU Regulations do not permit more than one source of EU funding for the same activity.)
7.6 Publicity
For any publicity, events, information or interpretative material on or about your agreement land, you must:
- get our written agreement,
- acknowledge the support of the Environmental Stewardship Scheme, as part of the England Rural Development Programme.
Page last modified:
30 June, 2005
Page published: 3 March, 2005