Managing your Countryside Stewardship agreement following the end of cross compliance
Read about the rules Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreement holders must continue to meet following the end of cross compliance.
Applies to England
Cross compliance rules ended at midnight on 31 December 2023. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has amended the terms and conditions of your Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreement in the following way:
- Agreements before 2023: RPA has not removed references to cross compliance but they are no longer relevant.
- Agreements starting in 2023: RPA has removed references to cross compliance in the terms and conditions. RPA has also removed references to cross compliance from capital grants agreement holder’s guides. It has not removed reference to cross compliance from Mid Tier and Higher Tier agreement holder’s guides. All references to cross compliance in these guides are no longer relevant.
- Agreements starting on or after 1 January 2024: RPA has removed references to cross compliance from all CS agreement holder’s guides and the scheme terms and conditions.
Rules you must continue to follow
The end of cross compliance has limited impact on the way you manage your CS agreement. You must continue to meet legal requirements to protect people, livestock and the environment. These rules are set out in the Rules for farmers and land managers. These rules include the hedgerow management rules that were introduced in 2024. Read the next section to find out more.
Hedgerow management rules
Hedgerow management rules apply in England to protect and manage hedgerows on agricultural land. These rules take account of the Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024 that came into force on 23 May 2024.
The rules apply to hedgerows growing on, or next to, land used for agriculture.
With any management activity you carry out under your CS agreement, you must follow the:
- hedgerow management rules on cutting and trimming
- hedgerow management rules for buffer strips next to hedgerows
For CS options that require cultivation or use of pesticide or fertiliser, it will usually mean you must establish the CS options at least 2 metres (m) from the centre of the hedgerow. This is a regulatory hedgerow management buffer strip.
You cannot overlap the following CS options with the 2m regulatory hedgerow management buffer strip:
- SW1: 4m to 6m buffer strip on cultivated land
- SW2: 4m to 6m buffer strip on intensive grassland
You must start to measure these options at least 2m from the centre of the hedge. This excludes the land within 2m of the centre of the hedge as we cannot pay you to carry out a legal requirement. Your agreement therefore may be affected if the area in SW1 or SW2 overlaps the land within 2m of the centre of the hedgerow.
This is already a requirement for agreements that started before 1 January 2024.
For agreements that started on 1 January 2024, the SW1 and SW2 requirements came into effect on 1 January 2025.
Other legal requirements
Cross compliance requirements for the protection of stone walls, earth and stone banks, watercourses and waterbodies, and soils are not fully reproduced in the Rules for farmers and land managers but there are other legal requirements that you must consider.
Leave stone walls, earth and stone banks in place
Stone walls, earth and stone banks, that you created or maintained through a CS option, must remain in place and meet the terms of your existing agreement.
You must also consider any other legal requirements. For example, where there are planning protections in conservation areas for certain boundary features. You should contact your local planning authority before you take any action.
Protecting watercourses and waterbodies
You must consider the legal requirements around the protection of watercourses and waterbodies.
The farming rules for water prevent the use of manure and fertiliser close to a water course. You must take all reasonable precautions to prevent pollution from land management and cultivation practices, such as spraying pesticides.
There is no longer a requirement to maintain a green cover on land either:
- within 2m of the centre of a watercourse
- from 1m on the landward side of the bank
However, the use of grass buffer strips is an effective management option to prevent water pollution and meet the farming rules for water.
Protecting soils
The farming rules for water require you to take reasonable precautions to prevent soil erosion, such as establishing cover crops and grass buffer strips.
Further rules for farmers
There are more rules that you might need to follow when managing your agreement.
Read more about Rules for farmers and land managers.
Updates to this page
Published 6 December 2023Last updated 21 February 2025 + show all updates
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Guidance has been updated to reflect the impact on Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreements of the end of cross compliance and the Management of Hedgerow Regulations that came into force on 23 May 2024.
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Removal of cross compliance information as no longer relevant. Addition of the impact of hedgerow regulations on the scheme.
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First published.