No government funds for hedges
Rural revitalisation plan
excludes hedges
Relatively unsung by nature lovers and Romantic poets,
hedgerows are a fundamental aspect of the British countryside. But the
government’s post-Brexit vision of a rural revitalisation misses them out,
according to critics.
Hedgerows come in
many shapes and sizes, the best ones for wildlife being broadest at the bottom
with woody species such as hawthorn, hazel and field maple. Hedges provide
shelter and nesting opportunities for woodland and farmland birds. Nectar,
berries, nuts and leaves are food for mammals, birds and invertebrates. They
can also help reduce soil erosion and water run-off on arable land. According
to Natural England, hedgerows also preserve carbon stocks and wildlife that may
have taken centuries to develop.
“A romantic view”
Historically, hedgerows were planted to show ownership
boundaries. Many were laid on common land during the enclosures beginning in
the 18th century to exclude people who previously used the land. In the 1980s,
the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy encouraged farmers to pull them down by
offering subsidies to make fields bigger. It proved disastrous, with the loss
of 23 per cent of hedgerows during the decade.
But Charlie Clutterbuck, a North West agricultural soil
scientist, believes Boris Johnson’s statement that “we will use the new
freedoms we have after leaving the EU Common Agricultural Policy to support
farmers to beautify the landscape” excludes hedgerow restoration and is instead
a call for big vistas, reservoirs and rivers.
“It is a romantic
view of the countryside,” said Clutterbuck. “You would imagine hedgerows should
be in there somewhere – most people would back this – but I have yet to see any
words confirming this. Johnson is playing to the City, to big finance who are
being invited to make bids under the new Natural Environment Investment
Readiness Fund (NEIRF).”
Government regulations in 1997 sought to reverse the loss of
hedgerows, preventing their removal without local planning permission. The EU
also sought to repair some of the damage by later introducing ecological focus
areas that included hedgerows.
Funding cuts
Anecdotal evidence suggests the total amount of hedgerows,
estimated at 402,000 km across England in 2007, has stabilised, but there is no
official data.
Clutterbuck is himself part of a Ribble Valley consortium
NEIRF bid led by the Larder Project in Preston, which includes key
organisations such as the National Farmers Union. NEIRF will provide natural
capital grants of between £10,000 and £100,000 to “people interested in
tackling climate change, creating and restoring habitats or improving water
quality”.
But he says government guidelines on these improvements do
not include aspects such as hedgerows and soil health. Instead, he said much of
the money on the bid he worked on is set aside for consultants at £500- £600 a
day.
“Money that once went direct to farmers through Countryside
Stewardship Schemes is being replaced by the Sustainable Farming Initiative but
half of this funding, around £2 billion, will be cut and replaced by schemes
that the government has yet to announce, which will be based on NEIRF ideas.
“These consultants
will be focused on attracting large scale funding, whereas in the past farmers
big or small got direct payments. Jobs will be lost.
“I fear that
attracting large-scale private sector investment will mean large[1]scale landscape
picture box projects rather than a working countryside.
” A Defra spokesperson said: “Our new schemes will enable us
to reward the work farmers do to manage every metre of hedgerows on their
holdings’ sustainability.” But she did not provide any guarantees that any
NEIRF projects would include hedgerows.
She did not respond
when asked whether funds will be used to pay consultants rather than farmers
and farm labourers.
