Horizon blog: Landscape Recovery - is it for you?

Farmers can now apply for funding under the Landscape Recovery Scheme for large-scale projects with particular environmental benefits, as individuals or in collaboration with other businesses. In this blog, our trade and policy analyst Jess Corsair highlights some key points anyone thinking about getting involved in the scheme might want to consider.

Following the environmental land management schemes announcement at the Oxford Farming Conference, applications for Landscape Recovery funding have now opened.

The overarching aim of all these new schemes is to ensure the government can meet environmental targets through incentivising the production of public goods. The Landscape Recovery scheme is a key part of that to support landscape level changes through long-term projects. The first wave of applications will aim to recover threatened native species and priority habitats or restoring streams and rivers, as well as providing other additional benefits such as contributing to net zero.

It is important to examine the Landscape Recovery scheme carefully and weigh up the costs and benefits of participating. But if you are already planning a project that covers the criteria, or perhaps are interested in working collaboratively to make landscape level changes, you may well receive funding to implement these plans.

The key points for levy payers to know when considering whether to make an application are:

• Anyone who is a land manager or landowner can apply, and those who are tenants can work with their landlords to develop the bid together
• The projects can be collaborative between different businesses or from a sole landowner or manager
• The project must be on an area of at least 500ha and up to a maximum of 5,000ha on land in England
• The project can include land already in other government schemes such as Countryside Stewardship or the Sustainable Farming Incentive, but you will not receive payment for activities that are already being funded.
• If the project includes land that extends across borders into Wales or Scotland it is still possible to apply but at least 500ha needs to be in England and only this land will be eligible for funding
• Applications will be scored and only a select number of highest scoring applicants will receive funding

If you are interested you can apply on the government website where you will need to provide details of the project, a breakdown of costs and maps of the existing land use and planned changes.

Applications are now open, with a closing date of 24 May 2022. If you’d like to feed into the development of the new schemes and either have a potential project in the pipeline that could qualify or are interested in planning a large-scale project, it would be well worth applying!