Uplands scheme applications rise

At the end of May, the Yorkshire Post reported that only 886 farmers in England had made the deadline for joining the Entry level Stewardship scheme from its starting date on July 1.

It was estimated that 9,408 were eligible, so that represented a take-up by only one in 10.

The figures were uncovered by the Tenant Farmers' Association, which said the Rural Payments Agency was part of the problem. Its re-mapping exercise had left many farmers with issues still unresolved on the deadline date, May 1.

The NFU said some farmers mistakenly thought they would be automatically covered for any gap between the end of their Hill Farm Allowance and the beginning of their participation in UELS.

And lambing had meant a lot of paperwork being left aside for a less busy time.

This week, Natural England published an update saying the number of applications had risen to 2,250 – nearly one in four – and more than half had already been processed into live agreements.

The average value of those agreements would be 26,800 over five years, at up to 62 a hectare a year.

In Yorkshire, there had been 500 applications, out of a "ballpark figure" of 3,300 eligible – not quite one in six. But the area office of Natural England said those applications covered 66,000 hectares against a target of 134,000 for March 2011.

That meant they were "well on track", according to area manager Peter Welsh.

He guesses a fifth of Yorkshire farmers are not yet applying for UELS because they are still in older schemes with time left to run.

Stephen Wyrill of Richmond, national vice chairman of the tenant farmers, said the new figures still left a lot of farmers who had come out of Hill Farm Allowance and were getting nothing to replace it – because they had difficulties getting into the new scheme or had been put off by the complications or did not yet know about it.

He said: "If you were in the HFA, you should have been allowed straight into UELS and somebody should have come out and sorted it out for you."

The next deadline for UELS agreements is tomorrow, for agreements to run from October 1. After that, September 1 is the deadline for November 1 starts and October 1 for December 1.

A new Step by Step Guide to Uplands ELS is available at www.naturalengland.org.uk/uplandsels/ – or call 0300 060 0011.

The North York Moors National Park Authority is encouraging its farmers to go into the scheme and has compiled a list of local agents who specialise in the paperwork involved.

Call the national park office on 01439 770657 for details.