Guidance

Woodland Creation grant leaflet

Updated 1 January 2022

This guidance was withdrawn on 4 January 2022

The Countryside Stewardship (CS) Woodland creation and maintenance grant closed for applications on 31 December 2021.

Applies to England

1. What is a Woodland Creation grant?

The Woodland Creation grant is part of Countryside Stewardship. It provides funding to supply, plant, weed and protect young trees.

Fourteen capital items are available and agreements are for a maximum of 2 years.

Grants are competitive and applications are scored. Agreements are offered to those with the highest score (depending on the budget that is available).

The highest scores are for applications that cover a large geographical area and those that have the greatest positive impact on:

• biodiversity
• water (quality and flooding) and
• climate change

2. What are the benefits?

It will help create a range of environmental and social benefits that:

• supports wildlife, particularly when new woodland links habitats or creates a protective buffer

• reduces the risk of floods, improves water quality and prevents soil erosion

• is resilient and can adapt to climate change

• enhances the landscape

3. Am I eligible?

To be eligible

• you must have control of the land and all the activities needed to meet the obligations for the 2 years of the agreement and the subsequent 5 years from the date of final payment
• you must be registered in the Rural Payments service
• your land must be registered in the Rural Payments service and linked to your Single Business Identifier (SBI)
• the land must not already be classified as existing woodland

The following land is not eligible and you cannot include it on your application:

• land subject to another Rural Development scheme
• land subject to another obligation which is not compatible with Countryside Stewardship
• land not entirely within England. Parcels that are either partly or entirely within Scotland or Wales are not eligible for Countryside Stewardship
• land where you do not have management control for the length of the agreement and are unable to have an application countersigned by the landowner.

You can continue to claim Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) on land in the Woodland Creation grant providing you meet all the eligibility requirements.

You can find full details on what is eligible in the ‘Woodland Creation Grant’ manual.

4. What can I apply for?

The items you can use are listed in the table below. TE4 (Tree planting) is mandatory. You can only apply for another capital item if you are also applying for TE4 on the land parcel in question.

Code	Capital item	Payment Rate
TE4	Tree planting	£1.28/tree
TE5	Individual tree shelter	£1.60/unit
FG1	Fencing	£4/m
FG2	Sheep netting	£4.90/m
FG4	Rabbit fencing supplement	£2.50/m
FG5	Fencing supplement - difficult site	£1.24/m
FG9	Deer fencing	£7.20/m
FG12	Wooden field gate or wooden wings	£390/gate
FG14	Badger gate	£135/gate
FG15	Water Gates	£240/Gate
BN13	Top Wiring – Stone Wall	£3.60/m
RP32	Small Leaky Woody Dam (1-3m)	£461.39/dam
RP33	Large Leaky Woody Dam (3-5m)	£764.43/dam
FY2	Woodland Infrastructure	40% of actual cost

Capital items covering both planting and protection are subject to a cap (taken as an average per hectare across the whole application) of £6,800 per hectare. To be eligible, applications must meet the following thresholds:

	General eligibility threshold	Lower threshold only applicable in exceptional and fully justified cases. Planting as part of measures for water quality or flood prevention.
Minimum area per application	3 hectares	1 hectare
Minimum block size	0.5 hectares	0.1 hectares
Minimum width	20 metres	10 metres

The following species are not eligible and cannot be funded under this grant.

• Gorse (Ulex europaeus)
• Rhododendron (Rhododendron spp.)
• Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)
• Laurel (all members of the Lauraceae family and cherry laurel)

5. What the grant cannot pay for

The grant cannot be used to pay for the cost of:

• any capital works you start before the agreement start date
• planning application fees or other transactional fees
• agent fees or other advisory fees
• meeting legal requirements, including planning conditions
• woodland creation for short rotation coppice and/or short rotation forestry.

6. Restrictions

Once a Woodland Creation agreement starts the land is considered non-agricultural and you cannot use it for any agricultural activity, including grazing.

7. How do I apply?

You can apply for a Woodland Creation grant at any time - applications are open throughout the year.

1. Register your land in the Rural Payments service.
2. Submit your application to the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) by email or post.
3. A Woodland Officer will visit your site, carry out consultation if required and agree any changes to your application with you.
4. Send your final signed application.
5. RPA will offer an agreement to the highest scoring applications.
6. Complete capital works within 2 years.
7. Send your final claim (and any consents) to RPA.

The application form is available online, search for ‘Countryside Stewardship forms’.

If you cannot get online, call us on 03000 200 301 to request an application pack.

8. Other Woodland Creation grants

The Higher Tier option Woodland Creation Maintenance Payment (WD1) may be available to you once you have completed the capital works under your woodland creation grant agreement to support the maintenance of your newly created woodland.

WD1 is the only option available under this grant and offers a multi-year annual payment of £200 per hectare to support the successful establishment and on-going maintenance of new woodland. Agreements run for a period of 10 years.

A Woodland Creation Planning Grant (WCPG) may be available for woodland creation schemes over 10 hectares in area with a planting mixture that includes a significant productive element (that is, 70% of the tree species are ‘productive’). WCPGs contribute towards the costs of gathering and analysing the information needed to make sure proposals for productive multi-purpose woodland take account of any impacts on: biodiversity, landscape, water, the historic environment and local stakeholders.

WCPG is not part of Countryside Stewardship and has a separate application process.

9. More information

Read more information about Woodland Support, including the Woodland Creation grant and other Woodland Support grants on the Countryside Stewardship: How to apply pages. Other woodland support grants available include:

• Woodland Management Plan Grant: a capital grant to support the production of a UK Forestry Standard (UKFS) compliant 10-year plan for managing woodland

• Woodland Tree Health: a capital grant to restock or improve woodland due to tree health problems.

• Woodland Improvement: an annual payment to help improve your woodland. Available through Higher Tier, you need to have an approved woodland management plan to apply.

10. What else is available under Countryside Stewardship?

The other main parts of the Countryside Stewardship scheme are:

• Higher Tier – Higher Tier is for land that requires more complex management tailored to the individual site

• Mid Tier – Mid Tier provides a range of options and capital items that together help to deliver a broad range of environmental benefits

• The 4 Wildlife Offers provide a simpler set of options to help improve the wildlife on their farm. The offers are:

  • Arable Offer;

  • Lowland Grazing Offer;

  • Upland Offer; and the

  • Mixed Farming Offer

• Facilitation Fund - supports individuals and organisations working with local groups of farmers and land managers, to co-ordinate their environmental land management.

For more information about these schemes, go to GOV.UK and search for ‘Countryside Stewardship’.