The NFU is encouraging farmers to have their say on the future of hedgerow protections.

Defra is currently consulting on how to ensure hedgerows in England continue to get the right level of protection ahead of the end of cross compliance by 2024.

The government department is seeking views on how the protection of hedgerows should be approached after the end of cross compliance; and the sanction regime that could be applied to enforce compliance, and has put forward two proposals for hedgerow protection rules:

  • Option 1: initially rollover existing cross compliance rules;
  • Option 2: an alternative approach where Defra would seek to develop new legal protections.

Defra has said that it wants to support farmers to maintain standards as farming moves away from cross compliance.

In most cases, the cross compliance rules are already in domestic legislation (for example cattle ID or NVZ) and will continue to provide important protections to the environment and animals. Farmers must continue to comply with these requirements, and regulatory authorities have powers to enforce.

However, some of the cross compliance rules do not have the same requirements in domestic law – this includes hedgerows and other field boundaries, soils, and watercourse buffer strips. In all of these situations, Defra has been actively considering the most appropriate approach to prevent environmental harm and encourage good practice, whether that is through regulation, incentives or other means.

Under cross compliance, management measures to protect hedgerows are covered by GAEC 7a.

Legal protection for hedgerows is provided by the Hedgerows Regulations 1997. This prohibits the removal or partial removal of hedgerows of 20 metres or more growing on common land, protected land or agricultural land without prior notice given to local planning authorities.

The local planning authority is then responsible for deciding whether a hedgerow is ‘important’ (according to criteria relating to its wildlife, landscape, historical or archaeological value set out in the Regulations) and therefore should not be removed.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 also contains various offences relating to removing the nests and eggs of wild birds, disturbing nest-building wild birds or their young, and damaging or destroying the sheltering places of wild animals.

NFU vice-president David Exwood said: “The NFU would like to see the future management of hedges take into account practical management aspects that work with farmed land and those that use it, such as a range of exemptions, including those currently a feature of the cross-compliance guidance as they are based on challenges faced by the farming sector on an annual basis.”