Introduction
Find out about the grant and what it's made up of.
Countryside Stewardship is administered by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Natural England provides technical advice in support of the scheme.
The Countryside Stewardship (CS) facilitation fund supports facilitators (individuals and organisations) who bring farmers, foresters, and other land managers together to improve the local natural environment at a landscape scale.
This can cover:
- land under existing agri-environment and forestry/woodland agreements
- common land
- land that is not currently under agreement
The facilitation fund builds on the principles of partnership working to deliver environmental benefits.
Funding will be awarded to successful applications through a competitive process. The highest scoring eligible applications will, subject to the available budget, be offered an agreement.
Successful applications will be those which show a partnership working together across holdings, to deliver shared environmental outcomes that could not be achieved by individual holdings acting on their own.
The Government has confirmed that it will guarantee funding for Countryside Stewardship grants if they are:
- agreed and signed before 31 December 2020
- good value for money
- in line with domestic strategic priorities
Countryside Stewardship supports Defra’s Strategic Objective of ‘a cleaner, healthier environment, benefitting people and the economy.
It also supports Defra’s 25 year environment plan ‘for our country to be the healthiest, most beautiful place in the world to live, work and bring up a family
Read the main Facilitation Fund: Countryside Stewardship page on GOV.UK
For Countryside Stewardship forms go to GOV.UK
if you need further advice, email CS-Facilitation-Fund@rpa.gov.uk or call us on 03000 200 301 (Monday to Friday, 8.30am - 5pm).