Rural Payments and Services

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The aim of this item is to create a new hedge or restore an existing hedge as a habitat for wildlife or as a landscape feature.

Hedge planting will be required as part of restoration of an existing hedge, where gaps of greater than five metres should be replanted, or to create a new hedge.

Hedges provide valuable food and cover for a variety of birds, insects and small mammals and act as an important link between habitats.

They can also help prevent soil erosion and store carbon.

Eligibility criteria:

• where gapping up, only gaps greater than five metres within existing hedges which are located entirely on your land and where there is access for both sides to be cut are eligible for capital funding
• single species beech hedges are not eligible unless you have prior approval
• where creating a new hedge, any land where there is access for both sides of the new hedge to be cut is eligible
• a march hedge between two neighbouring holdings is only eligible where it is managed under the scheme by both parties

You must combine this item with either the Management or Restoration of Hedgerows option or the Creation of Hedgerows option and at least one of the following items:

• Stock Fence
• Vole, Rabbit or Hare Guards

Areas to be planted or gapped up can only be claimed once during your contract.

*see 'Requirements' below:

You must mark the proposed location(s) of areas to be planted or replanted on a map.

• you must plant in a double row with a minimum of six plants per metre
• you must plant with at least three different native flowering species (e.g. hawthorn, blackthorn, dog rose, holly or elder). Beech may be planted as a single species where it is locally appropriate but you must have prior approval for this
• you must protect the new plants from damage by wild and domestic herbivores. There are associated capital items to support this as outlined in the 'Eligibility' section. If there is existing protection in place, for example an existing stock proof fence, this will be considered meeting the eligibility criteria.
• you must carry out this capital item during the first 12 months of your contract

You can claim £5.40 per metre of planted hedge, or £2.70 per metre where the hedge will form a shared boundary.

To support hedgerow restoration or management you can select this item with the Coppicing of Hedges item.

The inspectors will check:

• the location and extent of the work
• you have planted a double row with a minimum of six plants per metre
• you have planted a hedge with at least three different native flowering species (e.g. hawthorn, blackthorn, dog rose, holly or elder). Beech may be planted as a single species where it is locally appropriate but you must have prior approval for this
• you have protected the new plants from damage by wild and domestic herbivores
• you have carried out this capital item during the first 12 months of your contract

Supporting guidance is available for this item.

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