Woodland Creation Grant 2018 documents available now

Woodland Creation Grant 2018

Documents are NOW available on GOV.UK

The Forestry Commission are pleased to announce the launch of Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation Grant 2018. We have listened to applicants and made guidance available much earlier this year, this is to allow applicants more time to plan applications. The manual, application forms, and how to guide are all available on the Woodland Support pages of GOV.UK now and applicants are encouraged to begin building their applications this autumn.

You can apply for grants of up to £6,800 per hectare to support ground preparation, tree planting, fencing and tree protection and initial maintenance, plus an option to subsequently apply for a maintenance payment for up to 10 years, covering the initial period while trees get established.

Richard Greenhous, Director of Forest Services for Forestry Commission England said:

“Our Forestry Commission teams are on hand to advise on applications and help you make the most of funding available to create valuable new woodland.  We can help applicants ensure they have all the information they need to plant the right trees in the right places, in order to meet your project’s goals.
 
 “We look forward to hearing from applicants who want to reap the economic, environmental and social benefits of sustainable woodland creation.”
 
The application submission window for Woodland Creation 2018 falls between 2 January and 16 February 2018

What's new for 2018?

Capital items; FY2: Woodland Infrastructure and BN13: Top Wiring – Stone Walls (which now includes provision for sheep netting), have both been introduced for 2018, offering applicants a wider range of items to include in their application. Improvements to the application form Annex 2 have been made to combine the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) application form into the Woodland Creation Plan and make the overall experience simpler. The addition of more auto-calculating and pre-populating cells should make completing an application more user friendly.

With documents available now, we are encouraging applicants to start developing their applications this autumn. We suggest speaking to your local Woodland Officer prior to submitting the initial application in January 2018.

What's new for Creation 2018 - Webinar

For more information on how to apply and to find out what is new for 2018, please join our Webinar on 2 October 2017 at 3:00pm.

Please register here to join us

What else is happening in Countryside Stewardship?

Countryside Stewardship Woodland schemes and BPS

The Forestry Commission has worked with Rural Payments Agency colleagues to address the common customer queries which arise from the interaction of CS woodland schemes and the Basic Payment Scheme. Operation Note 42 clarifies compatibility between different elements and what landowners need to do when to comply. It is not a comprehensive guide to BPS and customers need to also read the relevant BPS guidance www.gov.uk/rpa/bps. The BPS guidance for 2018 will also reflect this clarification

Applications for Countryside Stewardship: facilitation fund are open

Apply for the latest round of the facilitation fund. There is £1.7 million of funding available in the third round of the facilitation fund. Applications need to be submitted to Natural England by the 14 November 2017. More information is available on GOV.UK

Other Woodland Creation funding opportunities

Take a look at our new Woodland Creation Hub to consider all your options for Woodland Creation. 

Woodland Carbon Fund

Eligibility to receive support under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) has been extended to the Woodland Carbon Fund, in the same way as it applies to Countryside Stewardship, as long as wider BPS eligibility criteria are met. This change is in addition to the minimum size threshold being reduced to 10 hectares until August 2018.

Woodland Creation Planning Grant

The minimum size threshold for Woodland Creation Planning Grant (WCPG) has been reduced to 10 hectares, to reflect the minimum threshold change in Woodland Carbon Fund

Low Risk map for afforestation on the Land Information Search due to be updated

The Low Risk map on the Land Information Search will soon be updated, where a higher EIA area threshold applies to afforestation projects has been revised. The Low Risk area, for sites of more than five hectares in extent, is now 5.7 million hectares compared with 2.0 million hectares in the original map. The main reason for the change is that land which has been subject to Entry Level Stewardship agreements and where no other constraints apply, is now included in the Low Risk layer.

Tree Health

Phytophthora austrocedri guidance and information available

We wanted to make you aware of Phytophthora austrocedri (P. austrocedri) which is a fungus-like pathogen posing a threat to juniper trees in Britain. Juniper (Juniperus communis) is an important native species, and a significant proportion of the small area of juniper woodland in Britain is protected. P. austrocedri was first reported in the UK in 2011, and infected trees have been found in Scotland and the north of England. P. austrocedri is a notifiable pathogen and all suspected cases should be reported to the plant health authorities. Guidance and further information is available on our website.