EU Rural Aid Scheme to Have ‘Green Focus’
By David Wilcock
Four-fifths of money to be invested in the economic and social development of rural areas in the South West under a new EU programme will be spent on environmental measures, it was revealed yesterday.
Eighty per cent of the pounds156.8 million Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE), around pounds125 million, will be spent on environmental proposals as part of the seven-year project designed to safeguard rural communities and help countryside businesses thrive. The programme was launched in Exeter yesterday morning.
It will be under the remit of Natural England, the quango responsible for protecting the country’s landscape, and the Forestry Commission. It will be used on programmes including the Environmental Stewardship Scheme, which includes paying farmers to turn arable land into hay meadows plus other measures and the Woodland Grant Scheme, which pays landowners to plant trees.
Yesterday, officials claimed that the money would go to help farmers and other rural enterprises, by linking up with other programmes in the scheme a promoting measures that were good for business.
A spokesman for Natural England claimed that the scheme was good news for farmers.
“For a lot of farmers it is an important source of income,” he said.
“As long as they keep to the guidelines they know they will get the money for a number of years.”
In total, the RDPE scheme will spend pounds3.9 billion programme countrywide. It has three priorities, or “axis”, for rural development: improving competitiveness of the agriculture and forestry sectors; improving the environment and the countryside; and improving the quality of life in rural areas and encouraging diversification of economic activity.
About a third of the South West’s share, pounds55 million, is to go to Cornwall, with the rest spread across the greater South West area.
Natural England and the Forestry Commission will be responsible for the environment and countryside section. The South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) will administer the remaining parts of the programme.
But Rob Hatt, head of food and rural affairs at SWRDA, stressed that the three parts should not be viewed as separate entities.
“In reality, that money being invested in the environment is being invested in farmers,” he said.
“It may be that it is being invested to enhance the environmental benefits for the public good but it is still being invested in business.
“Natural England and the Forestry Commission are using the money in line with national stewarding programmes and forestry grants respectively.
“The approach we have taken in the South West is to engage very closely with Natural England from the beginning, because although the lion’s share of the budget is through their national programmes, what we are striving to achieve is integration on the ground, because ultimately we might be talking to the same landowner or farmer.”
Melanie Hall, regional chairman of the National Farmers’ Union, said the scheme was welcome, but that, as ever, the money would not be enough.
“We have to make sure that with the grants, it is easy for farmers to access so they can recover some of the money top sliced off by the Rural Payments Agency,” shw said.
“The trouble is that there is never enough and a lot of farmers cannot access it because of the way their farms are set up.”
However, she added that because of this, the money from the other parts of the programme would need to be used prudently.
“The funding allows farmers to really rise to the challenge of the future of the industry,” she said.
“We don’t want it all to run away in terms of administration when it needs to go into farming.”
dwilcock@ westernmorningnews.co.uk
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