News

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th April 2024 We are almost always in the middle of a story. The past is not over but rather a prologue. The future is yet to come, evolving from now but with surprises. There is rarely a conclusion, though sometimes hindsight suggests a move to the next Act. The present is simply a waystation, not an answer. More than for some time, we are living amid accelerated change and disruption, perhaps familiar with what we have...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 12th April 2024 The Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Code of Practice for England was published on Monday. It is a voluntary Code for all parties to tenancies (that is, landlords and tenants) and their advisers, giving guidance as to approach, conduct and behaviour. It looks to support good relationships and help where difficulties arise. Intended to improve practice, it does not change the law or alter any contract and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th April 2024 Keir Starmer’s Labour Party (like the Conservatives in Canada) clearly feels it is working a rich electoral vein in positioning itself as the advocate for more housing, while other parties carve up the opponents between them. Following his references in the autumn to “bulldozing” the planning system for England, the document issued for the launch of its local election campaign suggest that...

The Scottish Government has advised that with effect from Monday 1st April councils have the power to charge up to double the full rate of Council Tax on second homes. It goes on to state that 29 of the 32 Scottish local authorities have confirmed their intention to use the power. A second home is classed as any home that is not used as someone’s primary residence but that is occupied for at least 25 days in a year....

From 2nd April small sites are required to demonstrate biodiversity net gain as a condition of planning consent (unless exempt). Small sites are defined as: residential development where the number of dwellings is between 1 and 9 on a site of an area 1 hectare or less, or if the number of dwellings is unknown, the site area is less than 0.5 hectarescommercial development where floor space created is less than 1,000 square metres or total site area is less than 1 hectaredevelopment that is not...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th March 2024 Today’s developing agricultural policies have a twin-track character, embracing both farming and nature, albeit in different ways across the UK. As they develop, so the interactions become more complex. There are clear synergies with farming’s dependence on nature but, even with the well-advanced evolution of England’s new schemes, the tensions here saw this week’s swift decision limiting the use of...

DEFRA has announced today (25th March) that there will be a cap of 25% of a holding able to be entered into 6 actions under the Sustainable Farming Incentive that take land out of direct food production. The actions are: IPM2: Flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field stripsAHL1: Pollen and nectar flower mixAHL2: Winter bird food on arable and horticultural landAHL3: Grassy field corners or blocksIGL1: Take improved grassland field corners or blocks out of managementIGL2: Winter bird food...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th March 2024 Agricultural Property Relief (APR) from Inheritance Tax has again proved a very robust relief. In yesterday’s Budget with the financial constraints of poor growth, the Treasury issued the Government’s answers to last year’s major consultation: it will work with interested parties to understand what environmental transactions and assets really involve and develop a shared analysis of the issues and so how...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th February 2024 Perhaps, as in T.S. Eliot’s words, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality” (Four Quartets). Much of our public discussion seems based on making gestures, that the wish is better than the deed, the protest more material than the answer, rather than facing the realities of our problems and tackling them, explaining the issues and applying the practical remedies. One of the greatest challenges of...

Members are reminded that the window for transferring delinked payment reference data opens on 15th February and closes on 10th May. For more detail, see our website note of May 2023....

The RPA has published an online SFI Action Checker: Check what SFI actions you can get paid to do on your land (defra.gov.uk). This tool can be used to assess which SFI Actions are compatible with the land types on a holding, and directs users to the relevant guidance. It does not assess eligibility for the SFI scheme, but rather is intended as an entry-level tool for those scoping out which actions may be suitable for them....

It has been brought to our attention that some members have been receiving scam emails purporting to be from the CAAV and stating that their membership is overdue. If you receive one of these scam emails please delete it. Any genuine emails regarding membership would come from dorota@caav.org.uk or abby@caav.org.uk.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd February 2024 The Government went in strength to this week’s NFU AGM: the first Prime Minister’s visit for 16 years as well as the new Secretary of State, Steve Barclay, and Farming Minister Mark Spencer. Always an occasion for announcements, more were made than usual, fleshing out policy development and schemes. Following Steve Barclay’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, the theme for England is now...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 15th February 2024 DEFRA’s Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is the element of England’s new regime that sits best with commercial farming. There are some non-production options but, generally, the actions offered can readily fit with or alongside commercial farming. Actions available or becoming available include improving soils, helping the adoption of precision farming and multi-species pastures with their benefits...

The Forestry Commission are running a free event on 22nd March 2024 to provide an introduction to woodland creation opportunities, funding and support. The event will take place at the Holiday Inn, Scotch Corner, DL10 6NR. More detail and booking is available here: Woods Mean Business: tree and woodland event for land and forestry agents Tickets, Fri 22 Mar 2024 at 09:30 | Eventbrite....

The Welsh Government has published a written statement on Riparian Ownership: Maintaining Watercourses, highlighting guidance document produced by NRW which explains to landowners how riparian ownership works, and how it might affect them.

From today (12 February), all new major housing developments in England are required to deliver at least a 10% Biodiversity Net Gain. A collection of related CAAV resources and external guidance is available on our website here: BNG - CAAV Collected Guidance - Version 1 - The Central Association for Agricultural Valuers.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 8th February 2024 It started in Holland but has now spread to most EU countries in the mainland of Europe, from Spain to Poland as farmers bring their tractors to town make their points. Each country’s protests though follow its national agenda, perhaps only unified by the EU’s pernickety farm-level auditing of the CAP and the growing force of the EU Green Deal. With a wider background of western malaise and ahead of...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 1st February 2024 Many very large things are being asked of us and our land. We are being asked to answer climate change and adapt to increasingly volatile weather, reducing emissions, sequestering carbon and managing water, improving nature and eco-systems, providing housing and other development including infrastructure – and still provide food. All that is to come from the finite area of our islands at a time of growing...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th January 2024 It can be worth remembering in today’s rapidly changing circumstances and new environmental offers that, where law or taxation make special provisions for farming, their benefit can be limited to where farming is being done. They are not entitlements, but conditional. Where agricultural activity ceases, the benefit of those special provisions can be lost. The provisions are to assist those who are farmers,...

Applications have now opened for the 2nd round of the Improving Farm Productivity Grant. For more detail on the grant, see our website note of 14th December. Since the initial publication of the scheme guidance, DEFRA has increased the proportion of the costs that the grant will cover from 40% to 50% for robotic and automated equipment....

Two major energy projects have reached milestones in their consenting. Sizewell C has announced that it has satisfied the commitments made in its Deed of Obligation. These were preliminary tasks required under the Development Consent Order (DCO) and preconditions for the start of the formal construction phase. The start of construction is not conditional on the final investment decision (FID) which is expected to be taken later in 2024. The Drax Bioenergy carbon capture and storage project was...

Following the start-of-the-year announcement by the DEFRA Secretary on schemes and coming farming policy, DEFRA is hosting several webinars to brief advisers and farmers. The Farming and Countryside Programme (FCP) will be holding an adviser specific webinar on Monday 22nd January: Advisor Webinar - the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI24) Tickets, Mon 22 Jan 2024 at 15:00 | Eventbrite. DEFRA are hosting a webinar on 26th January. Janet Hughes and others from the RPA will be providing an...

As a striking achievement, the United Kingdom is now about halfway to its net zero target for 2050, the first G7 country to do so. With the lags in producing statistics, the headline territorial measure for UK-produced greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 has now been reported at 51 per cent of their level in 1990, lower than before the pandemic and expected to have fallen further in 2023. With much of this achieved by increased renewable energy reducing the share of fossil fuel in electricity...

Andrew Liddiment of near Leominster, Herefordshire referred himself to the CAAV’s disciplinary processes following a criminal conviction for sexual assault. The CAAV Executive, sitting as a Disciplinary Panel, reviewed all papers submitted and, as authorised for such a case under the Bylaws, determined that the seriousness of the matter for the reputation of a Fellow and of the Association warranted his expulsion from membership of the Association with immediate effect from 19th...

The end of year closure of the SFI Application Portal meant that all applications that had been started but not submitted by then are treated as withdrawn. The Application Portal has now re-opened. We understand that a number of applications have already been started using re-opened Portal and a small number of applications have now been submitted. This is seen to suggest that the system is again functional.

As Members will be aware, BPS ends on 31st December 2023, succeeded by delinked payments managing the run-off funds of the scheme. For more background to the scheme, see our recent Podcast). Over the past month, farm businesses have received an Information Statement, setting out the basis on which their delinked payments would be calculated. A business’ reference data – the gross payment received across 2020, 2021 and 2022 – will be able to be transferred to another party in early 2024....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th December 2023 Forget England’s Agricultural Transition and the coming end of Basic Payment in the other parts of the United Kingdom. While those dominate conversation and thinking, the most striking policy change for much rural land across the UK goes far beyond where the environmental parts of the new policies might seem to go. The international “30by30” commitment means that 30 per cent of land and 30 per cent of...

The RPA has published guidance on the second round of the Improving Farm Productivity grant. Budgets of £15 million for each have been allocated for solar equipment and for automation and robotics. Grants of between £15,000 and £100,000 will be available for farmers to fund a range of solar equipment, at an intervention rate of 25%. The grant will therefore be able to fund solar projects which have a total cost of between £60,000 and £400,000. For robotic and automated equipment, grants of...

The Forestry Commission has updated the grant manual for the England Woodland Creation Offer, providing more detail for when applicants can move land from Countryside Stewardship into the EWCO scheme. See section 3.3.2 here: England Woodland Creation Offer application form - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

At the end of December, the RPA will be closing the SFI application portal, to allow for annual updates to be undertaken. Any unsubmitted SFI applications will need to be restarted when the system re-opens in January. The key points are: SFI 2023 applications should be submitted by 31 December In order for applicants to apply in 2024, RPA will close the service for new applications for a few days, between 27 December and 1 January Customers with an SFI application they have started but...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th December 2023 The area-based Basic Payment Scheme ends this month for England. The RPA has just made the overwhelming majority of the second balancing payments for 2023, so that English farmers have now had almost two thirds of the direct payments possible under the Agricultural Transition. The statutory instrument revoking the Scheme and ending cross compliance has been published together with another one setting 60 day...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th November 2023 While having more Fellows and Probationers than ever, the CAAV is conscious that rural practices feel an acute shortage of staff for the growing range and volume of work coming in. With work growing faster than we are, this feels more than the general shortage of staff in the wider economy. The CAAV has been tackling this with a round of meetings with some employers and the universities to see how we can...

The Government has published a range of documents in preparation for the implementation of Biodiversity Net Gain in England in January 2024: Draft statutory instruments, amending existing legislation and making provision for the Biodiversity Gain Site Register, excepted sites and irreplaceable habitatsUpdate guidance for BNG, collected here: Biodiversity net gain - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)A revised Biodiversity MetricDraft planning practice guidance on BNG We will follow the announcements with a...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 23rd November 2023 The let sector covers a third of England’s farmland, still with many 1986 Act tenancies but more than half on FBTs, and still large areas of Wales and Scotland. In addition to that scale, it provides a critical means of flexibility in farm structures, entry, expansion and exit from farming, relieving owners of the need to farm and enabling farmers to have the use of land without having to buy it. Its...

On Tuesday night Jeremy Moody was formally bestowed Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), its highest honour, in a ceremony at the RAU attended by Chair of the Governing Council, Dame Fiona Reynolds, as well as the Vice Chancellor, Earl Bathurst as Vice President and many of the senior leadership team at the RAU. Jeremy Moody was commended to the meeting by William Leschallas. The event was also attended by friends, family and alumni – including the current CAAV...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th November 2023 At least the UK does not have volcanoes. Iceland, a land still being forged in fire, is watching in awe at the risk of an eruption 25 miles from its capital, evacuating a town before its destruction. In Europe’s other volcanic area, the Phlegraean Fields near Naples and Vesuvius have just had a 4.2 earthquake. Here, we are only following Iceland in the more benign search for geothermal energy prospects in...

DEFRA is holding two upcoming SFI Webinars:20th November, for Livestock and Grassland Farmers4th December, for Arable and Horticultural Farmers...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th November 2023 Speaking to the North East Chamber of Commerce, Keir Starmer returned strongly to his party conference theme of the vigour that a Labour Government would bring to secure new housing and infrastructure as part of encouraging economic growth (see webnote). It chimes quite closely with the legislation that the Conservative Government is putting in place and, even while repeating the intention to “bulldoze”...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 2nd November 2023 The variability of British weather has long been a topic of conversation but our extreme weather events now come “not single spies but in battalions”. Hundreds of acres of Lincolnshire farmland are still flooded and Angus had at least 11½” of rain in October, the wettest since its records started in 1891. As rain falls on saturated land, we see surface water flooding as well as river flooding –...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th October 2023 It is only October and we already have our second “named” storm. Storm Babet has repeatedly battered and saturated Angus, Aberdeenshire and neighbouring counties with still more rain falling after silage bales had been washed out to sea. Flooding has gone wider, whether Framlingham, Derby, Retford, parts of the Welsh border and now the central south coast. This is the present taste of the more volatile,...

The Government has announced that the closing date for new applications to the Green Gas Support Scheme (GGSS) is to be extended to 31st March 2028. The extension is in response to difficulties experienced by project sponsors in commissioning anaerobic digestion plant and in securing feedstock. The extension is part of the Government's response to the mid-scheme review. Further details of the response will follow in due course. The policy framework for biomethane following the closure of the...

Applications open on the 23th October for the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund 2024. More information is available here: Facilitation Fund 2024: Countryside Stewardship - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

BASIS, the agricultural and environmental qualifying and training body, has developed a register for environmental advisers. With the growing focus on environmental delivery through Government schemes and private initiatives, the intention is to provide an industry platform for those who plan to offer farm environmental advice to businesses in the UK. More detail on the register can be found here: BASIS | Environmental Advisers Register (basis-reg.co.uk). In the future, entry to the register...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 12th October 2023 This week’s Labour Party Conference has brought its pro-development policies to the fore, driven by answering the housing shortage. Keir Starmer has crystallised the policy with his phrase about “bulldozing” an over-localised planning system. He has been supported in this by both Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, and Angela Rayner, deputy leader, carrying forward the work done by Lisa Nandy, her...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 5th October 2023 HS2 has now been identified as the cuckoo in the nest with its ever-escalating costs and extending timescales, seen as an unmanageable project with its benefits now less than its vast and perhaps unquantifiable costs. It had grown to take a third of the Department for Transport’s capital budget, more money than either Highways England’s roads renewals programme or Network Rail’s capital programme. With...

DEFRA, with the English Organic Forum, is holding a webinar on SFI and organic on Friday 13th October at 12-1.15pm. Please see this Eventbrite link for registering.

Anglian Water's Farm Innovation Grant - which pays farmers in targeted catchments in that company's region to adopt practices that improve water quality - is to open for applications from 2nd October 2023 until Sunday 12th November. There is a maximum value of £7,500/holding available. For more information, see here: Anglian Water Farming Innovation Grant | Campaigns | News and insights | Ricardo....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th September 2023 Permitted development rights can be seen as one means to save the over-stretched and under resourced planning system from itself, a safety valve allowing investment in and change for the future. A member has recently had to make a full planning application for two environmental ponds, one 3m by 3m and the other 5m by 8m, in an AONB that, among other things, required a dark skies assessment, a relative...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd September 2023What a moment to be starting on a professional career as an agricultural valuer. Having spoken this week to the new entry at the RAU and soon to speak at Harper Adams, students are starting their courses leading to the profession. Across the country, people are starting their first employment and their practical training. Both groups start at this fascinating time when so much is now open for change and all...

Applications are now open for the Farm Innovations Programme Feasibility Studies. Applications for this competition should be at an early stage of research and development, with the grants to support projects through testing to see if a research idea works in practice and if it is worth further investment. The total cost of the project must be between £200,000 and £500,000 and last up to 24 months. More information is available in our website note of 2nd August....

The Sustainable Farming Incentive opened for applications on the 18th September. DEFRA are undertaking a 'controlled' roll-out of the SFI, with the scheme gradually opened to more land managers. For more detail, see the SFI Handbook, our website notes of 21st June and 29th August, as well as a recent CAAV podcast. In conjunction with the opening of the SFI applications, DEFRA has updated some of the relevant guidance pages on the GOV.UK website. This includes the publication of a range of...

The Department for Communities has announced consultations on two sets of technical regulations that are proposed to be made under the Private Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Act 2022. One set of regulations would introduce requirements for the provision of smoke, heat and carbon monoxide alarms in private rented properties in Northern Ireland, including draft regulations and how to respond are provided. A second set of regulations would introduce five-yearly electrical safety inspections in...

The CAAV has been made aware that some Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier applicants have seen land misidentified within the Rural Payments Service portal as being above the moorland line, therefore restricting which CS options are available for their application. Those who believe that this is the case should first check the extent of the moorland line on the Magic Map, as this is amended from time to time. Where there is a mismatch between what is shown on the Magic map and what is available...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th September 2023 Water supply is steadily becoming a critical issue in the United Kingdom with agriculture needing to look ahead and ensure both access to water and making the best use of it. Only last year, four Sussex councils were proposing water neutrality policies for housing development – that no more use should be made of water once houses are built than before – while, earlier this year, South East Water...

We have published this guidance to using the CAAV’s Facilitating Dispute Resolution service, supported by this podcast. The CAAV President has statutory status for the appointment of arbitrators to agricultural tenancy disputes under the 1986 and 1995 Acts on unilateral request. However, the CAAV service goes much wider than that, appointing arbitrators, experts and mediators for all rural disputes across the United Kingdom. We start by urging good and effective negotiation to avoid the...

We have received the following update from the RPA: Customers intending to apply for CS Mid-Tier online (closing date 15 September 2023) will need to submit land changes no later than 5 Sep 2023. Please advise your members that we can prioritise emails if they include the subject heading ‘CS application RLE1 land change’ and their SBI.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 31st August 2023 We have yet to see what the true effect of the Government’s proposed changes to nutrient neutrality might be. The combined package of legislative amendments (yet to pass the House of Lords), measures and funding is intended to achieve both the unlocking of house building and improved quality of water courses. That package represents a move from a single tool, requiring nutrient neutrality only from...

Members will be aware that farmers and land managers have been invited to register their interest in applying early for the SFI 2023 as part of the controlled rollout of the scheme. Submitting the Expression of Interest form when invited to do so will enable eligible applicants to access the scheme as it is opened. The speed of the controlled rollout will then be assessed to prevent backlogs and delays. Once applicants have registered their interest, they are advised to review the scheme...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 24th August 2023 Harvest can be a time for taking stock – perhaps especially with this year returning to a more catchy form after last year, with better weather grabbed when possible but with challenges in drying costs, quality and prices. More have had old crop in store and any national surplus faces export markets. For many, tax payments on the 2022 harvest year will be due in January. But it marks the completion of a...

DEFRA has announced that from 23rd August, the ban on gatherings of Galliforme poultry and birds has been lifted. Galliforme birds include chickens, turkeys, pheasants, partridge and quail. The ban has only been lifted in England and Galliforme birds and poultry from Wales and Scotland are not allowed to attend bird gatherings in England. Gatherings are subject to the APHA poultry gathering general licence and giving APHA seven days notice of the event. They are not permitted in disease control...

The Farming & Countryside Programme team at DEFRA is holding a webinar for farmers to find out about the payments available in England. The webinar will take place on 6th September, between 11:30am and 12:30pm. More detail, and booking, is available here: Defra funding for farmers webinar Tickets, Wed 6 Sep 2023 at 11:30 | Eventbrite....

DEFRA has recently launched a campaign to recruit a new cohort of members for the Independent Agricultural Appeal Panel. As you know, the panel is an important part of the process in considering cases of dissatisfaction relating to policy. Details of the application process can be found via the link below: Role details – Independent Agricultural Appeals Panel members – Apply for a public appointment – GOV.UK (apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk)...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 17th August 2023 News of planning permission for a prawn farm in Crowland, Lincolnshire draws attention to high investment agricultural projects in a number of UK farming sectors where the business, rather than the property, will be the driver of value. This is still agriculture, further testing farming’s spectrum from food production to land management. According to the proposition, agricultural planning rights may be...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 11th August 2023 A recent international survey by the insurance broker, Gallaher, found UK businesses curiously passive in preparing for climate change. 48 per cent said it had already harmed them, with a mix of the direct impact of extreme weather, higher operating costs and disrupted supply chains. However, 53 per cent had then taken no action, thinking it the government’s task to ensure that businesses prepared –...

DEFRA has today (10th August) published the following in relation to the SFI 2023 offer: the voluntary ‘How to do the SFI actions’ guidance some minor updates to the SFI handbook, and a summary of what’s been updated

Janet Hughes, Farming and Countryside Programme Director, and Jonathan Marsden, Head of Standards for SFI, are holding a webinar on SFI 2023 on this Thursday afternoon, 10th August at 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm. Their aim is to provide an opportunity for advisers to ask questions about the actions and guidance in the SFI 2023 Handbook before applications open. This is the registration link for this Advisers webinar. Intended for advisers only, this event precedes possible later, more sector specific...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 3rd August 2023 “Wish upon a star.” It might work in Disney films but it is no basis for engaging with reality to answer the many large challenges we face. These require focused thought, effective mechanisms, planning and logistics and sustained attention with leadership giving explanation, not magical thinking. An immediate illustration of grand aspiration meeting reality lies in HS2. The Infrastructure and Projects...

The Bank of England has announced that the Bank Rate has been increased to 5.25%, an increase by 0.25% from 5%. The vote was 6–3 in favour of the increase to 5.25%. One member preferred to maintain Bank Rate at 5% and two preferred an increase to 5.5%.

RPA MAKE OVER 80,000 ADVANCE BPS PAYMENTS The RPA yesterday (1st August) made the first part payment of Basic Payment for 2023 to 81,090 applicants (97 per cent of applicants) of which 80,554 have received the money with the balance subject to “banking holds” and the money should be released shortly. Where a payment has not yet been released, the RPA is working to pay where possible in two further payment slots in August. The payment should represent half the currently assessed sum due...

Last week’s CAAV E-Briefing leader ended by pointing to the opportunities for members to apply skills in advising clients on adapting to the climate change that is here and to come: “It seems sensible for property-based, resource and weather-dependent small businesses with longer term outlooks, like farms and estates, also to look ahead, especially when undertaking new projects or reviewing strategy. As trusted advisers, both bringing a wider view and knowing the property and business,...

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has launched an online tool for reporting dead wild birds. The tool is compatible with desktop and mobile applications and allows accurate reporting of the location of the find. Further information is available on the DAERA website at Wild Birds and Advice for the Public....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 20th July 2023 Setting records, Mediterranean Europe is for some days nudging 50oC (122oF) while that has been broken in parts of the USA and China. While Italian dairy farmers install fans and sprinklers for their cows, this is only two months after seven months’ rain fell on Italy’s Emilia Romagna in two days, flooding 43 towns, with over 400 landslides and displacing 50,000 people. As that shows, climate change is...

DEFRA has announced two webinars on Biodiversity Net Gain to help those looking to enter the off-site market. 2nd August, 3:30 – 4:30pm: Biodiversity Net Gain for landowners: how to get involved – suitable if you’re new to BNG, or want to understand the off-site process step by step. 7th August, 2 – 3pm: Biodiversity metric demonstration for landowners – also relevant to ecologists, learn how to use the biodiversity metric to calculate how many off-site units you can produce on...

Members working on Countryside Stewardship using the Mid Tier On-Line system will be aware that there have been technical issues with the application portal on the Rural Payments Service: see our note of 12th July. The CAAV has been engaging with DEFRA and the RPA, providing examples of the problems encountered and pressing for a swift resolution. A series of system updates to the Rural Payments Service was made on Monday evening (17th July), now found to have enabled a number of applications to...

Animal Health and Welfare Pathway - FETF The RPA has today started issuing decisions on Animal Health and Welfare grant funding agreements. Successful applicants will have until Monday 11th September to accept the agreement offered. There is a small number of applications for which further clarification is needed. We understand the the RPA is seeking to resolve outstanding points with those applicants....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 13th July 2023 Our development control system was created in 1947 in an economy depressed in the wake of war and when it was thought that “the man in Whitehall knows best”. Distinctive around the globe for its site-specific micro-management, it has been under growing strain for decades. What was intended as a technocratic process became more open and then overtaken by the popular resistance to development seen in many...

Having raised a number of members’ problems with the Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier On-Line application system with the RPA, it has now recognised that there are issues which it is tackling with its IT suppliers so that they are resolved for affected applicants. The CAAV has been told: “We are putting support in place for those affected, including measures to ensure those who experience issues are not excluded from applying.”...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 6th July 2023 The re-electrification of Britain is a key part of the net zero agenda. The broad, high level policy aims are to double the amount of electricity we use by 2050 and so to double the amount generated, all as renewable energy, powering most heat and transport. That means doubling the amount to be transmitted and distributed across the country between generation and use, across clients’ land to give the capacity...

Natural England has opened the second round of the Tees Valley Nutrient Mitigation Scheme for applications. The application window closes at 11:55pm on 28 July 2023. For more background on the scheme, which is open to those undertaking residential development in the Tees Valley catchment area, see our website note from July 2022....

Natural England has confirmed the designation of 3,044 hectares of land in West Cornwall as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The area, known as West Penwith, includes lowland heathland, fens and dry acid grassland, lichens, wetland valley mires, as well as some surrounding 'clean' agricultural land. For more background, see our website note of 6th June....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd June 2023 Something needs to wake us up about the extent of economic stagnation in the UK (and the EU) since 2008, resulting in our current crisis with low incomes in the face of costs. Not only has our flat-lining since 2008 broken from our growth trend since the eighteenth century but the USA gives a current comparison – as ever with issues - showing a strikingly different story over the last 15 years: in 2008,...

A landowner and contractor have been ordered by a judge to pay costs in excess of £255,000 for illegally felling more than 270 protected trees. The charges included fines, confiscation monies and the Council's costs. The charges related to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, with the trees subject to a Tree Preservation Order and sitting within the Clay Hill Conservation Area. The Council has served a Tree Replacement Notice for 284 trees under the Town and Country Planning (Tree...

From June 2023 onward, the Dean Organic Fund will be accepting applications for new loans from its £450,000 revolving fund.Applicants must be UK-based companies, partnerships or individuals, active in organic-certified and/or ecologically sound farming and food businessesLoan amounts will be between £5,000 and £25,000Loans will be interest-free and unsecuredLoans will be repayable over periods of no more 5 years. Repayments will normally be in monthly installments starting after the first...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 15th June 2023 We have yet really to see the scale of what is involved in the climate change already to come, in mitigating and in adapting to it with the substantial trade-offs that will be needed. With El Niño changes now in the Pacific, the expectations are of above trend world temperatures for 2024 – a taste of the future – with the potential for the UK to have a harsher winter and a hotter summer. At what point will...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 8th June 2023 It is hard this week not to dwell on Ukraine. The CAAV’s National Conference at Oxford on 7th July is to receive a presentation, The Impact of the War on Agricultural Valuation in Ukraine, from Victor Zayats, an agricultural specialist member of the Ukrainian Society of Appraisers. I was discussing this with him and other Ukrainian valuers on Tuesday morning just after the news of the blowing of the Kakhovka...

DEFRA has published the dates of the application window to apply for a derogation for spreading livestock manure on grasslands in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones. Those seeking a derogation must apply between 6 June and 4 July 2023. More information is available here: Grassland derogations for livestock manure in nitrate vulnerable zones - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th May 2023 The tenanted sector of agriculture is important. Around a third of England’s farmland is let while a larger fraction of land is farmed by those with some let land. As with other lines of business, it is a way to farm without carrying the capital cost of premises in the balance sheet, releasing funds for active business. It is a means of entry and equally important, for flexibility, progression and exit as a...

With increasing awareness and knowledge, and a changing climate, winemaking is a growing sector in England and Wales. Land suitable for vines in England is known to command upward of £25,00 per acre. Following Brexit, DEFRA is to review the regulation of the wine industry, proposing changes to better fit the UK context. A consultation on the new regulations was opened on 24th May, and runs until 21st July. More detail is available here: Smarter Regulation: Wine Reforms Consultation - Defra...

Yesterday’s CAAV Council approved this Report on the Association’s activities in 2022, alongside the financial accounts.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th May 2023 The bells striking for midnight on Monday marked the end of an era for farming in England. For 31 years, May 15th has been a key date in the farming calendar for a succession of area-based payment regimes, since the MacSharry reforms were implemented for 1993. The frantic scramble then to have the required mapping done in time foreshadowed later crises, as applications were prepared and made each year, despite...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 11th May 2023 1,050 years ago on 11th May 973 but without Handel or a gospel choir, Edgar was crowned king of all England in Bath Abbey. Edgar made commitments with essentially the same oaths as Charles III amid the ceremonial on Saturday: to uphold our laws and customs and govern with law, justice and in mercy, doubtless echoing earlier coronations. They frame the later, more specific commitments of Magna Carta, the Bill of...

Reminder: The deadline for applications to the Basic Payment Scheme in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is the close of Monday 15th May 2023. In England, a valid claim in 2023 is a key criteria to be eligible to receive the Delinked Payments in the coming years. For more information, see our website note of 2nd May....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th May 2023 Competition between a growing number of different uses of land is an increasing part of many of our major policy debates and poses as many challenges for environmentalists as anyone else. While there are synergies between overall goals there are also conflicts. Making progress on managing climate change, restoring nature, ensuring food and recovering control of energy involves significant, potentially rapid,...

The Government has updated the guidance to the EIA (Agriculture) Regulations. The update relates to the section that details when a screening decision - approving or preventing an action - is required from Natural England ahead of an intensification of agricultural use. Previously, item seven in the given list of proposed activities that required a screening decision stated:'increasing stock density that will result in improved vegetation from grazing' The edited guidance now...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th April 2023 Last Friday, the Suffolk Association of Agricultural Valuers marked its 175th anniversary with a breakfast at the Suffolk Food Hall hosting solicitors, accountants, tax advisers and other professionals for an event of both networking and briefing. The celebration was delayed by a year following the pandemic as the actual anniversary was last year. Suffolk is recorded as the oldest of the CAAV’s local...

The Rural Payments Agency will be opening the Customer Service Centre helpline between 8:30am and 5pm on the two weekends before the BPS scheme deadline of 15 May. Saturday 6 May / Sunday 7 May Saturday 13 May / Sunday 14 May In addition to this, they will also keep the helplines open until 7pm on Monday 15 May.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 20th April 2023 So many conversations now revolve on the difficulty, effort and time in getting things done, appearing simply to be a feature of modern life but frustrating progress and achievement. In part, we do not notice what works well but do feel the frustration as a piece of work moves from being glutinous to appearing impossible. More fundamentally, this denies our ability to make our future better. Some of this is...

The Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has announced that the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) housing measures for poultry and captive birds in Northern Ireland have been lifted from 00:01 on Tuesday 18 April 2023. The AIPZ mandatory biosecurity measures will remain in force. The announcement includes a link to a biosecurity checklist....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 13th April 2023 England may be demonstrating that one thing worse and less effective than having national panning targets is not having them. The August 2020 Planning White Paper proposed a new approach looking afresh at where people want to live as revealed by the ratio between prices and wages. The early retreat from that turned into a Parliamentary rout before Christmas on the Levelling up and Urban Regeneration Bill, such...

The Animal Plant and Health Agency has announced that the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) housing measures for poultry and captive birds in England and Wales will be lifted from 00:01 on Tuesday 18 April 2023. The AIPZ mandatory biosecurity measures will remain in force. More information on Wales is available on the Welsh Government website. At this time the Scottish government has not lifted the housing measures....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 6th April 2023 In the last week we have seen a step and been shown parts of a map for the long road to net zero. Both illustrate the sheer scale of the journey still to be travelled, once grandly referred to by a minister as "the biggest transition in human history". We should not underestimate what that requires for the target to be met in the next 27 years - and still have to adapt to much climate change. The step is that,...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th March 2023 2023 is the pivot year for English agricultural policy, when its gathering momentum becomes real for farmers on the journey to a business sector without direct payments in 2028: Basic Payment rates are cut by 35 per cent from 2020; 50 per cent in 2024 now paid half yearly, the payment this July/August 2023 will see farmers paid more half the total payments due between 2021 and 2027 de-linking for 2024...

Farm Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) – The present application round for productivity and slurry management closes on 4th April. The round for Animal Health and Welfare has just opened, capable of funding items such as solar panels for electric fencing, cow brushes, sheep handling, and cameras for monitoring animals. The opportunity for larger grants for cattle housing may be available later this year....

Recently, DEFRA sought feedback from a group of farmers, land managers and advisers in England to improve the presentation and accessibility of information related to farming legislation and regulation. The research group reported difficulty in finding relevant rules and understanding their implications due to the number of rules, their grouping, and complex wording. To address these issues, a single page called "Rules for Farmers and Land Managers" has been created on GOV.UK, which groups...

Members have been in contact to tell us that they are having trouble accessing RPA maps on an iPad. A recent update to the Rural Payments Service means that the maps now open in a new tab - this is to allow the user to continue to review and update information on the system while also using the maps. However, the default setting of the Safari browser on an iPad is to block pop-ups, preventing the new tab with the maps from opening. To changes this, iPad users should open Settings, scroll down...

The Government has confirmed the budget for the Contracts for Difference (CfD) renewable energy scheme Allocation Round 5 at £205 million. The CfD scheme provides financial support for renewable electricity generators. The support is allocated by auction, now annual starting with AR 5. More detail on the scheme may be found here and here....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th March 2023 We see growing competition for the use of land with agriculture, itself likely to be on the Missing from the Budget Speech but buried in the accompanying papers, the Treasury has issued an important consultation and call for evidence on major taxation issues for farming, environmental matters and the management and use of rural land. Opening up important questions, the paper covers: the taxation...

The House of Commons Library, which, among other things, provides 'politically impartial analysis and statistics' to Members of Parliament and their staff, has published an overview of the changes to farm payments in the UK: CBP-9431.pdf (parliament.uk). This briefing includes extracts from policy announcements, enabling legislation and stakeholder views.

Following engagement from the CAAV and others, DEFRA has published updated guidance lifting the funding limits for Countryside Stewardship Capital Grant agreements. Previously, there was a cap of £20,000 for each of the 4 action groups. Published on 8th March, the new guidance states: There is no limit on either the maximum amount for any application or the amount you can apply for in each of the 4 groups (boundaries, trees and orchards, water quality air quality and natural flood...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 2nd March 2023 Eggs and then tomatoes have long been features of the rougher end of political debate but the new shortage of tomatoes might now make a sharper political point than the travails of the egg sector. In the shifting debates over food security, supplies have continued to reach shop shelves. The supply chain was seen to perform well in managing and adapting to the early days of the pandemic. However, rising food...

DEFRA has today published on its blog a run-through of the one-off grants available to farmers in 2023. The does not include capital grants under the Countryside Stewardship scheme. The post can be found here: Grants available in 2023 - Farming (blog.gov.uk). A wider look at payments available to farmers and land managers, including agri-environment schemes, can be found in this DEFRA brochure: Farming is Changing (blog.gov.uk)....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 24th February 2023 With the Government now apparently stabilised after the events of 2022, decisions are coming steadily. Following January’s news on the English schemes for 2023 and 2024 with payment rates and the Environmental Improvement Plan, more news on productivity grants was given at the NFU AGM and then the long awaited policy development on biodiversity net gain was issued. We await much else including detail for...

The Foundation for Common Land have published on their website guidance - checked by the Rural Payments Agency - on Higher Level Stewardship agreement extensions on common land. The note is available here: https://foundationforcommonlan....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th February 2023 Aid and regulation, stick and carrot, are Government’s main tools for achieving its statutory and demanding environmental targets, confirmed in December and affirmed by the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023. DEFRA January prospectus for the schemes offered in 2023 and 2024 shows us the aid and the carrot. We should not forget that role of regulations and the stick, becoming more potent as we near the...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th February 2023 While it seems conventional to criticise a lack of policy development, that cannot be said of the areas with which we work. The policies of the Agricultural Transition Plan were further fleshed out last month. The Environment Act, last week’s Environmental Improvement Plan and the current Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill all lay out major programmes of work. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has finally...

DEFRA has today (7th February) opened the application window for Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier agreements. The full guidance and more detail can be found online: Higher Tier grants 2023: Countryside Stewardship - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). For more background detail on government schemes for 2023 and 2024, see our website note of 26th January....

Landscape Recovery is DEFRA's scheme for radical, landscape scale and long-term nature restoration and creation. For more background detail, see our website note of 6th January 2022. Round 2 of the Scheme is to open in Spring 2023. In preparation, DEFRA are inviting those interested to join a series of webinars, where they will be providing information and seeking feedback from potential applicants. The webinars can be accessed at the following links: Thursday 23 February 8:00 – 9.30...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th January 2023 DEFRA has today set out in over a hundred pages its approach, schemes and options in England for this year and 2024. It offers six new SFI standards for 2023, each now with options, not in separate levels, and their payment rates, some now moved from Countryside Stewardship and developed. The picture is given for Countryside Stewardship, now enhanced to carry the load that had been intended for Local Nature...

DEFRA has reminded farmers to apply before the 31st January for the first round of the Slurry Infrastructure Grant. More information on eligibility and the funding available can be found in our website note of 23rd November 2023.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 19th January 2023 Twenty years ago this week the EU Commission, then a power in Britain, published the draft legislation for the Single Payment Scheme. It being immediately clear that access to land would be the key to securing entitlements and then give access to future payments, this draft froze the agricultural land sales market. That required work and ingenuity by the CAAV and lawyers to develop the arrangements for...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 12th January 2023 DEFRA’s policy and operational decisions are now coming in fits and starts, not yet catching up with what many are seeking. December saw the announcement that Countryside Stewardship, already with some 35,000 agreement holders, would be developed to meet the larger land use objectives and local priorities previously set for the Local Nature Recovery scheme, which was not going to be seen at all until...

The Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) covering the whole of England, Wales and Scotland has been amended to forbid the movement of game birds that have been caught up for 21 days. The Game Act 1831 permits the catching up of wild game birds during the open season for the purposes of breeding. The prohibition came into effect at midday on 9 January 2023. Birds may not be moved from the premises where they are caught for 21 days after the last bird was caught, unless a licence is first...

The CAAV hosted a successful breakfast meeting at the 2023 Oxford Farming Conference. Jeremy Moody, Secretary and Adviser, gave a presentation to attendees, with the title 'Focus on What You Can Control'. Jeremy Moody drew attention to what might matter to farm businesses – and what might be a distraction – as we move further into this new era of change, risk and uncertainty. The slides are available here: Jeremy Moody' Presentation 06/01/2023....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 5th January 2023 While a commonplace point in much end of year commentary has been uncertainty over agricultural policy, this is an area of relative certainty. Area payments are being phased out in England, are to be removed in Wales and made much more conditional in Scotland with strong climate change objectives. Only Northern Ireland, with no Ministers, Executive or Assembly, is not taking a new policy forward though the...

The Green Gas Support Scheme provides tariff support for plants producing biomethane via anaerobic digestion which is injected into the gas grid. It opened for applications on 30 November 2021 and is funded by the Green Gas Levy. It replaces the Non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive which closed on 31 March 2021. Tariff support is available to cover the cost of new biomethane production equipment and the cost of operating it. Tariff support payments are made for 15 years....

The Scottish Government has announced grant support of up to £7,500 for installation of heat pumps in private houses. It is also offering similar levels of grant for households wishing to install other energy efficiency measures. The grants are increased by £1,500 for houses in rural areas. The previous obligation to take an interest-free loan alongside the grant has been removed. Private sector tenants are eligible for grants under some circumstances but landlords appear not to be. Further...

Royal Forestry Society (RFS) and the Royal Scottish Forestry Society (RSFS), in connection with Trainhugger UK and GreenTheUK, have announced a new grant scheme for RFS and RSFC Members. Grants are for this planting season and beyond, at a rate of 50p per tree. Full terms and conditions, and applications details, can be found here....

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has announced 18 days of strikes in the next two months by its members at the RPA. The RPA has advised the CAAV and other that: “You may have seen dates for upcoming RPA strikes and we wanted to provide assurance on our level of service during this period. “We’ve been working hard over the summer and autumn to ensure that we get as many farmers paid when the payment window for BPS, CS and ES opens this week and we’ve made good progress....

The Welsh Government has announced that a housing order for all poultry and captive birds will come into effect on Friday 2nd December 2022. In addition, it will be mandatory to complete a biosecurity self-assessment. Three of the four nations of the UK now have mandatory housing orders in place, the exception being Scotland....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 24th November 2022 Government in London is now beginning to take decisions again. Civil servants have briefed their fourth set of ministers since the end of June and markets have been calmed after the fallout from the September Financial Statement. The backlog is large, the time left to this government even more limited and many of our issues laid out more starkly than before. From DEFRA, we have the good news of the...

DEFRA will host a webinar on the Slurry Infrastructure Grant on Wednesday 7th December. Participants will be able to put questions to the policy leads during the session.

DAERA is asking EFS agreement holders who started their agreement on 1 January 2022 to ensure they complete a Claim Confirmation this December. Farmers who accepted a Tranche 5 agreement in 2022 and submitted a year 1 claim using the Single Application Service this year, must submit a Claim Confirmation online between 1 December 2022 and midnight 3 January 2023. Failure to submit a Claim Confirmation will mean you will not be paid and your EFS Tranche 5 agreement will be cancelled. Claim...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 17th November 2022 There is a dreary and repetitive pattern to some public discussion of environmental schemes, one that appears to fail to understand, ignore or hide the realities of policies but seems to make good copy. Too often, it defaults to see not only backsliding but betrayal, alleging that at each turn the Government is about to hold a bonfire of the environment. Looking back, lobby groups were raising this concern...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 10th November 2022 As COP26 slides into COP27 with COP28 doubtless to follow, the language of climate change and the high level commitments become ever more familiar but the scale of its impact, what might be required to mitigate it and what we might have to do to adapt to it have yet to impress themselves on the public mind. At one level, it is evident that the real heavy lifting has to be done by the major corporate...

A member has flagged with us a technical issue printing from the Magic Maps application. This is a known fault, which is being caused by a 'security issue with newer versions of Chrome and Edge.' Natural England are advising people to use the Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers. Updates on the operation of the Magic Map can be found on their 'Latest News' page.

The Energy Prices Act 2022 received Royal Assent on 25th October 2022. The Act empowers the Secretary of State to establish schemes to reduce the price of domestic electricity in gas in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It also empowers the Secretary of State to reduce the energy bills of non-domestic energy consumers. The arrangements stand from 1st October 2022 for two years, though the Secretary of State may extend this for six months at a time by regulation....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 3rd November 2022 We have seen that our system can remove Prime Ministers in whom it has lost confidence. Doing this twice in four months means that the Government’s in-tray is now bulging. After some years of welcome continuity, DEFRA civil servants are briefing their second Secretary of State in two months with many unmade decisions now urgent. Some departments now have their fourth team in four months. Yet, existing...

The Animal and Plant Health Agency has just announced that it will be mandatory for all bird keepers in England to keep their birds housed and to follow strict biosecurity measures from 00:01 on 7 November 2022. More details are available here. For a broader briefing on avian influenza please see our website note....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 27th October 2022 The change of Prime Minister and the coming Medium Term Fiscal Plan gives a moment to take some lessons from the last few weeks. With interest rates across much of the world returning to historically normal levels while energy prices and inflation rise, the Financial Statement of 23rd September and the way it was presented provoked a fast and sharp market reaction. While now abated, that showed all...

DEFRA has released the final list of organisations funded to provide free advice under the Farming Resilience Fund. The list is available online. For more information on the Farming Resilience Fund, see our website note of 14th July....

Thérèse Coffey has been appointed Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.Michael Gove has been appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

After becoming the only candidate to secure sufficient nominations from MPs, Rishi Sunak is to be the leader of the Conservative Party and the next Prime Minister. We now await the formation of the Cabinet and the announcement of new or continuing ministers.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 20th October 2022 Although many now say that the new policies being developed across the United Kingdom will not be substitutes for Basic Payment income, the conversations then slip all too easily to looking to them to make income good, seeking the answer again from government. If not the new schemes, then the talk is of possible income from the as yet largely unformed and fledgling markets in carbon, biodiversity, nutrient...

Prime Minister Liz Truss has this lunchtime announced her resignation. The consequent leadership election is next week.

DEFRA has declared an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) across Great Britain. From midday on Monday 17 October, it will be a legal requirement for all bird keepers in Great Britain to follow biosecurity measures. More detail can be found online. Among other measures, keepers with more than 500 birds should restrict access for non-essential people on their sites, workers will need to change clothing and footwear before entering bird enclosures and site vehicles will need to be cleaned...

Following recent speculation that the Government may scrap proposals to end no fault evictions for residential tenants in England, the Prime Minister, Liz Truss, confirmed during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday (12th October 2022) the commitment to ban s.21 notices. There is, as yet, no timetable for this legislative change. The CAAV Note 16th June 2022 outlines the proposals in more detail....

The QE II Centre in London will see the return of the National Farm Management Conference this November. The event, titled ‘Agriculture’s defining decade: Balancing food and environmental security’ will address the big questions in the industry when it comes to the security of our food and environment. There is a stellar line-up of industry speakers who will discuss and debate how the UK can continue to protect the environment while keeping up with the demand to produce food sustainably....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 6th October 2022 Substantial areas of the property market are moving into increasingly uncertain waters, taking valuers with them. Factors such as rising interest rates, cost challenges, potential recession and changing market demands combine with the usual economic dynamics of activity moving between sectors and regions make valuation more challenging. A retrospective review for non-domestic property will soon come from...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th September 2022 Nature abhors a vacuum. Governments that do not tell their story lose control of its telling as others seize the moment to fill the void. DEFRA let it be known that there was a “rapid review” of the present policies. Little was then said and so, while reasonable for new ministers and perhaps no more than a routine “kicking of tyres”, the void was filled by third party speculation becoming a...

The government has declared Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex to be an Avian Influenza Protection Zone (AIPZ) from midday on Tuesday 27th September 2022. All bird keepers, including those with backyard flocks or who keep chickens, ducks or geese as pets, falling within the AIPZ are obliged to follow strict biosecurity measures to protect their flocks and contain the spread of the disease, per DEFRA and APHA guidance. East Anglia joins Cornwall, Devon and parts of Somerset, declared to be an...

Today’s Press Reports The press (Observer, Financial Times, the Times and others) and the BBC (website and the Today programme at 6.39 and 7.50) are carrying the story that the new DEFRA ministerial team, silent so far, are undertaking a “rapid review” of the policies they have inherited. The energy in the reporting seems to come from environmental organisations, concerned to link any possible change in DEFRA environmental re-orientation of payments to the Financial Statement’s plans...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd September 2022 As normal business resumes after the powerful commemoration and funeral of the late Queen, the Liz Truss Government brings a strong sense of a change in the wind. While all Conservative, each new Prime Minister since 2010 has set a very different tone infusing the operation of government This Government swiftly signalled a new course set by the stars of lower taxes (and in that tolerant of increased...

Scott Mann MP has been appointed today as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Lord Benyon has bene re-appointed to the same role in the Lords. Confirmation of the allocation of roles to ministers is awaited. The DEFRA ministers will now be: Ranil Jayawardena – Secretary of State Mark Spencer – Minister of State Trudy Harrison – Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Commons Scott Man – Parliamentary...

Whether an unresolved rent review or other issues from end of tenancy compensation to game damage, where an arbitrator is needed the CAAV President is ready to appoint on receiving an application. For an outstanding rent review under either the 1986 or 1995 Acts, the CAAV must receive the application before the term date. The CAAV appointment can be made afterwards, with the same statutory powers as the RICS. Applications can be made on this form on the CAAV website....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 15th September 2022 There are occasions when the sinews of a country are laid bare, when the veil of daily life and concerns are swept back to reveal deeper things that we rarely see. The combined death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of His Majesty King Charles III is such a moment. We commemorate, with shared and individual memories, and we look ahead. We see the value of a life of service, duty and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 8th September 2022 Location, location, location. That has been the received mantra for the housing and we now have to thing more about what might be the better uses for the very different kinds of rural land that we work with. We see a wider, more varied and complex range than simply that from silt fen to acid heath, with factors from location to geology and the opportunities and issues in the marketplace. At the same time,...

The President, officers, members and Secretariat of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV) send deepest condolences to the Royal Family on the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen’s devotion and service to her country, people and the Commonwealth for the seventy years of Her reign as monarch and the years before that, through war, peace and change, bore out a dedication and a sense of duty that is an example to us all. In particular, we appreciate and honour Her...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 1st September 2022 We said for some years that the 2020s would be decade of change and challenge for rural work, partly as we make our own future outside the EU and partly with the major changes in world markets, public tastes, technologies and climate change. That was before the pandemic, global supply chain disruption and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Just as the mechanics of the global supply chains might be easing, the...

DEFRA and the Welsh Government have set out their policies and approach towards avian influenza in wild birds in their joint publication of 31 August 2022. Guidance to landowners, managers and organisations responsible for areas to which the public have access includes: preparing contingency plans in the event of an outbreak; communication and signage warning of the hazards of avian influenza and how people can protect themselves, kept and wild birds; and improved biosecurity. In a separate...

The second round of the Farming Innovation Programme has opened for applications. See our webnote of 22nd August for more detail.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th August 2022 There are some significant misperceptions about agricultural subsidies. An English landowner and farmer, explaining why he had now “re-wilded” a substantial area of very low yielding land, said it was a response to the coming withdrawal of subsidy for his crops. The mystery is that he has not had a subsidy for even general arable cropping since 2004; even the quirks of the Single Payment over set-aside...

Part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 amended the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to strengthen police powers over unauthorised encampments. The amendments create the offence of residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle (Section 60C), provided that: There is at least one vehicle (a caravan counts as a vehicle) on the land.The landowner, his representative or the police have asked that either the trespasser leaves the land or that he removes his...

Scottish Mediation has announced a project to support mediation in 20 disputes between neighbours over the next 12 months. To be eligible for the free service, all parties must live in Scotland and be willing to participate in mediation. At least one party must be in private rented accommodation. More details are available on the Scottish Association of Landlords and Scottish Mediation websites....

Following recent hot and dry weather, the Forestry Commission has published guidance on the force majeure provisions of grant agreements for tree planting. The guidance will be of interest to those who feel that they will struggle to meet the obligations of a tree planting scheme due to the weather. More information is available here: Advice On Hot And Dry Weather Conditions In England....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th August 2022 International comparisons are difficult but a stark figure is that the UK’s GDP per person at $47,000 (including London) is less than 49 of the 50 US states; only Mississippi ($42,000) is poorer. Unless we answer our problem with improved productivity, in agriculture as much as in the rest of the economy, we shall be a poor rich country with expectations of lifestyles and public services, from health to...

The Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) covering England, Wales and Scotland was lifted at midday on 16 August 2022. Separate declarations have been made for each administration and are available on the web for England and Wales. Declarations for Scotland and Northern Ireland are not yet available. For further information and guidance see the DEFRA, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, and DAERA websites; guidance varies between the different administrations....

DEFRA has updated its guidance on Keeping farm animals and horses in extreme weather to include further guidance on how to transport animals in extreme weather. Welsh Government has also published its own guidance on keeping and transporting animals in hot weather as well as requirements on water provisions and conditions in markets....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th August 2022 While it seems that weather records can always be broken, East Anglia, the south east and south central England have, with 5mm of rain, had the driest July since the Met Office was founded in 1836, after England’s driest 8 months since 1976. Temperatures above 40oC broke UK records. In a pattern consistent with but ahead of climate change forecasts, much of the west and north were wetter with Scotland having...

The Bank of England has announced that interest rates have increased by 0.5% from 1.25% to 1.75%.

The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on its proposed New Build Heat Standard. The Government has proposed that from 1 April 2024 all new buildings applying for a building warrant will only be permitted to use zero direct emissions heating systems. A zero direct emissions heating system is defined as one by which the building is heated or cooled or by which hot water is made available using thermal energy located within the building or its curtilage and which does not emit...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th July 2022 The CAAV’s Soils Event, deferred by the pandemic, was held last week at Norbury Park Estate on the Staffordshire/Shropshire border, enjoying the hospitality of the owner, Professor Jo Bradwell. Soil scientist, Elizabeth Stockdale of NIAB, distinguished “soil character”– is a soil sandy, peat, loam, brash, …? – from “soil health” – is that soil in good heart? As a changeable quality,...

The Green Heat Network Fund aims to support the public, private and third sectors in developing low carbon district heating and cooling networks. The three-year scheme, with a total of £288 million in capital funding, opened in March 2022. It is now open for applications for the second round of funding, with a closing deadline of 26 August 2022. A further nine quarterly funding rounds are planned, with the last one on 29 November 2024. Grant funding is available of up to 50 percent of eligible...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 21st July 2022 Now is a time to prepare for the future. While farming’s common response is to point to uncertainty for delay and remaining as we are, now is when to improve businesses and build in resilience ahead of the post-BPS world. Earlier planned change is likely to be more effective; hiding from it risks later radical change, whether from public policy or the marketplace. Improving the business is likely to be...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th July 2022 History can rhyme. The Downing Street storm broke and the Prime Minister is now a caretaker awaiting his successor. It is a century long echo of the removal of Lloyd George as Prime Minister by the Carlton Club Conservative Party meeting in 1922, Stanley Baldwin saying “a dynamic force was a terrible thing” destroying political parties. With tax cuts now canvassed as freely as tree planting in the last...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th July 2022 This is being written amid the political standoff in Downing Street as ministers resign without prospect of immediate replacement and constitutional crisis threatens, perhaps averted by the Prime Minister’s resignation. Significant parts of the government might now be barely functioning with issues for decision in a difficult world left fallow and Bill Committees grinding to a halt for want of ministers. With...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th June 2022 The CAAV held its annual National Conference and AGM last week in Liverpool as a physical event for the first time in three years with all the opportunities this gives for members and the life of the Association. With the warm sunny weather that has often accompanied it, members and guests in pre-pandemic numbers met on the regenerated waterfront at Liverpool and visited the Earl of Derby’s Knowsley...

Update 30th June: Following further investigation, DEFRA has confirmed that Foot and Mouth and Swine Vesicular Disease have been ruled out, and the restriction zone has been lifted. DEFRA has announced that they are investigating an as yet unconfirmed case of Foot and Mouth in the Norfolk area. As a precautionary measure, an exclusion zone has been put in place. More detail - and updates - can be found on the government’s website. The CAAV will continue to update members....

SUPREME COURT GIVES DECISIONS IN CODE APPEALS The Supreme Court heard appeals in three cases under the Electronic Communications Code in early February: Compton Beauchamp - Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (Appellant) v Compton Beauchamp Estates Ltd (Respondent) Ashloch - Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (Appellant) v Ashloch Ltd and AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd (Respondents) “Queens Oak”/ On Tower - On Tower UK Ltd (formerly known as Arqiva Services Ltd)...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th June 2022 The Government’s Food Strategy White Paper is better seen as it describes itself: “the beginning of this conversation”, largely focused on the production of food as a business. It may not cover all the social policy strands of last year’s Dimbleby Report and, while affirming the Government’s environmental targets, it was not the place for a full blown environmental presentation. Climate change and...

Edwin Poots has announced the re-opening of two forestry grant schemes for Northern Ireland:The Small Woodland Grant Scheme: support for new native woodlands of 0.2 hectares and larger.The Forest Expansion Scheme: support for native woodland, mixed woodland or commercial conifer woodland 'that can best meet land owners business needs whilst contributing to a living, working, active landscape.' Applications to the Forest Expansion Scheme must be submitted to Forest Service by 31 August 2022. All...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th June 2022 The principle of equivalence has long lain at the heart of compulsory purchase compensation. Its inbuilt downward pressure encouraging resistance and so delay and extra cost for projects, George Osborne, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, put it to the Royal Economics Society only seven years ago that “We should change our outdated compulsory purchase regime. Both the LSE Growth Commission and Chambers of...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 2nd June 2022 The argument that climate change will bring investment opportunities was sketched in this presentation, Why Investors Need Not Worry about Climate Risk, by Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s Global Head of Responsible Investment to an FT Summit – Turning Talk into Action to Hit ESG Targets – on 19th May. With that billed provocative title, he provoked and was then suspended from his job. Analysis shows banks, under...

Following an announcement in 2021 that part of the Yorkshire Wolds is being considered for designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (see our website note of 25th June 2021), Natural England has now established a dedicated website for the proposal. The announcement comes after the Government's response to the Glover Report into protected landscapes (see our website note of 17th January 2022 for more background). As part of a process of consultation, members of the public will be...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th May 2022 “Food security” may have differing meanings but one theme at its heart it is to ensure that we have an efficient, competitive farming sector, resilient in the face of the many challenges coming. Improving productivity, achieving profit, is not an alternative to environmental improvement; each complements the other. Improved soil health and farming efficiency in using nutrients answers both economics and...

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has called for evidence to support its annual tariff review of the Green Gas Support Scheme. For more details of the Scheme, see our website note of 23 December 2021. The call seeks evidence on biomethane anaerobic digestion (AD) plant and views on the biomethane market outlook from owners or developers of AD plant and others. Online submissions are due by 10 June 2022....

We have been advised that the Rural Payments system is to be unavailable from 5pm on Tuesday 24th May to 9am on Wednesday 25th May. Users should not access Rural Payments during this time in which the RPA is making critical IT changes for SFI 2022. This is in addition to the regular system downtime which will be from 6pm to 9pm on Wednesday 25th May 2022.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 19th May 2022 Alongside food and energy, housing is part of “the cost of living crisis”. It poses a particular potent threat to the Government which, now with limited time to the next election, looks to answers for England in the Levelling Up and Renters Reform Bills. It may be disappointed as, having abandoned its recasting of the planning system, these seem to focus on symptoms, not causes. Pressures of prices, rents...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 12th May 2022 England’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was published yesterday, the day after the Queen’s Speech. Already 338 pages, it covers subjects from English devolution to “Combined County Authorities” to the power to review RICS governance and pavement licences. With a mixture of complex provisions and enabling powers requiring later regulations to give them shape, most aspects will require careful...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 5th May 2022 “Government has set an ambitious new target to raise at least £500 million in private finance to support nature’s recovery every year by 2027 in England, rising to more than £1 billion by 2030.” (Nature Recovery Green Paper, March 2022) Those are large and round figures. Where might this money come from and why? How might any of this be defined and monitored? The three major current topics each have...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th April 2022 In the third month of Russia’s gruelling invasion of Ukraine, its expected reverberations continue across the world, compounding already disrupted supply chains and gas markets. As a benchmark for world trade, the shipping company, Maersk, carrying a fifth of sea-borne containers, reports shipping volumes down 7 per cent over the last year but freight rates up 71 per cent. China’s severe Covid lockdowns...

The Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme (SACGS) has now opened for applications. SACGS provides capital funding for businesses to reduce ammonia emissions and impacts on water quality resulting from the storage and spreading of livestock slurry and digestate. More background to the scheme can be found in our note of 19th April. The scheme is to close to applications at midnight on 1st June 2022. More detail can be found here: Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme (SACGS)...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 21st April 2022 England’s SFI 2022 opens in a few weeks as the initial SFI offer, using some of the limited funds so far taken from Basic Payment and mainly focused on the soils issues that can benefit both productive farming and wider public goals. The application process and other aspects are to reflect lessons from the continuing SFI Pilot with its exploratory role and wider range of standards. Further standards and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th April 2022 The UK Government’s new British Energy Security Strategy, responding to the rising energy costs of the last year and now the Ukraine War, is better seen as a snapshot of work belatedly in progress, at differing stages needing more development and with much implementation to be done offering little immediate easing. Our energy networks have anyway been expected to come under pressure this decade as old...

Scottish Residential Tenancies Consultation The period for responding to the Scottish Government’s consultation on residential tenancies, A New Deal for Tenants, with its proposed changes to the law on private residential tenancies and its discussion of tied housing and housing in agricultural tenancies has been extended to close next Friday, 22nd April.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th April 2022 We are re-pricing the economy. This is not simply the larger impersonal movements of global commodity markets but the actions of suppliers and buyers, as each adjusts to changed circumstances. How far does each hold their ground or press their cause? What business adjustments does each make? What new things become practical? What old things have to change? This is perhaps still more an adjustment to a “new...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 31st March 2022 “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” (James Carville, Political Adviser to US President Bill Clinton) From the Chancellor to the supermarket and from the farm to the household, present circumstances and the last few months show...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 24th March 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has instantly removed a large supply of grain and oilseeds from markets immediately affecting prices in the already tight tail of the 2021 harvest. Forward markets seem to recognise that little may come from the Black Sea for the 2022 harvest. That naturally prompts discussion of food security though this means very different things in different contexts. From Joseph advising...

The Compulsory Purchase Association is seeking views from all those who undertake CPO work to assess the health and wellbeing of affected parties. The survey can be completed via this link.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 17th March 2022 The immediate and multiple human and economic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are reverberating around the world, further testing already disrupted supply chains and following the impact of the pandemic (still closing cities in China). With sharp movements in the prices and availability of gas, oil, metal and produce and consequent issues for fertiliser, there is much to consider in professional...

The 5th round auctions of the Woodland Carbon Guarantee Scheme will take place from midday on Monday 9th May to midday on Sunday 15th May 2022. The application deadline to take part in the auction is 11:59pm on Sunday 24 April. More detail can be found on the Government website. Our website note of 22nd November 2021 provide some background to the scheme....

The Basic Payment Scheme application window opened today (Tuesday 15th March) for 2022. Applicants have until 16th May to submit a claim. Guidance for 2022 is available here.

The Rural Payments service will not be available from 5pm Thursday 10th March to 9am Friday 11th March.

DEFRA has published a collection listing the various available streams of funding available to farmers. It can be found online here.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 3rd March 2022 “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” A week ago, Russia invaded Ukraine unleashing an increasingly brutal assault against determined resistance in the breadbasket of Europe. The consequences, reaching far beyond Ukraine, are likely to echo for years. With the deaths, devastation and intended destruction of democracy and civil society, the early effects can...

The UK government has decided to grant an application for emergency authorisation to allow use of a product containing the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam for the treatment of sugar beet seed in 2022. This is in recognition of the potential danger posed to the 2022 crop from beet yellows virus. The full details of the decision, as well as the conditions of the authorisation, are available here....

Russia invaded Ukraine on several fronts early this morning. As well as larger concerns about global gas markets (with consequences for fertiliser), early financial reports see: Brent crude oil at $101 a barrelupward pressure on grain, soya and metal markets with concerns about the disruption to flows of commodities. Ukraine is a major grain exporter. Russia is a major producer of commodities as well as energy (while gas has been noted it is the world’s second largest oil producer) and...

Manuals - The CAAV has asked for the new Manuals to be made available as pdfs and been assured that they are now being prepared for publication. Payment Rates - In a late revision, the proposed cut in the rate for OP4 (multi-species ley) has been reversed so that the rate will remain at £115/ha. This will not have been corrected in all the materials just published but is to be carried through into payments....

The deadline for all homes (not just those in the rented sector) to have interlinked smoke detectors installed, as well as carbon monoxide detectors, was 1st February 2022. CAAV note 23rd October 2020 provides further information.

Natural England and Natural Resources Wales have updated the Countryside Code advice for land managers. The document can be found online.

Natural England has received applications or expressions of interest for a Badger Disease Control Licence within the counties of Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Devon and Northamptonshire. Following DEFRA's guidance, an opportunity to comment on the applications has been opened. It should be noted that this is expressly not an opportunity to comment on bovine tuberculosis control policy more broadly, but is for those whose livelihoods and daily activities will be impacted by...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 3rd February 2022 The pressures and incentives for rural land use change continue to grow. However, the official policy frameworks for this are not yet in place even in England or clear as to operation and scale. Wales’ Sustainable Farming Scheme, Scottish land use policies and Northern Ireland’s framework are further away still. While commercial forestry is established and buoyant, these and similar markets, such as...

Base Rate increased today to 0.5%.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 27th January 2022 Climate change discussion has focused on its mitigation by carbon sequestration and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Affecting society and the economy, this has particular consequences for land management, farming and buildings. However, adaptation is equally important. All forecasts point to significant further change, even if mitigation is as effective as intended by 2030 and 2050 – with so much of...

The High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill has been deposited into Parliament to seek the powers to build and operate the next section of the HS2 route. More information can be found via this link.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 20th January 2022 With the Commons Public Accounts Committee asking DEFRA how its proposed environmental schemes might affect food production in England and similar arguments elsewhere in the UK, these schemes should be put into some perspective. DEFRA has set out the broad outlines. As money is released from Basic Payment, 10 per cent is to support productivity improvement and 90 per cent goes to buy environmental change on...

DEFRA has announced that, following feedback during the early rounds, the Farming in a Protected Landscape Programme will now have rolling application window. This will allow applications to be submitted up until the programme closes in 2024. For more on the aims of the programme, and the funding available, see our website note of 25th June 2021....

The CAAV office will close for Christmas at 1 p.m. on Wednesday 22nd December 2021 and re-open on Tuesday 4th January 2022. May we take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th December 2021 The housing market is a market for people. A house sale or purchase is the largest transaction many make while a house may be home, with a sense of place as well as a potential financial assurance. A home-owning democracy was a mainstay of 20th century politics but tight supply and loose money have made housing unaffordable for many. The functioning of this market is a key political issue – often also a...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th December 2021 DEFRA has made the third of its Agricultural Transition Plan statements, this time largely on SFI 2022 focussed on soils but also with a larger policy speech. This follows the Plan of November 2020 and June’s announcements on SFI and DEFRA’s payment principles. This is and should be seen as a pattern of the progressive development, implementation and testing of new policies, with a flexibility possible...

The Scottish Government have published a reminder that applications for the Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grants Scheme (SACGS), along with the relevant supporting documentation, should be submitted by 31st December. Completed claims and supporting documents should be emailed to local Area Offices. Applications already submitted will need to have the relevant documentation by that date as well. More information can be found online....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 2nd December 2021 With strong commodity prices (and their input costs), one established trend has been the growing strength of commercial forestry with harvested timber’s uses from construction to biomass now having more value as part of reducing carbon emissions in the wider economy. Economics and policies make this a different market from farm woodlands or from using standing trees to sequester carbon or offset...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th November 2021 It is striking that, while waiting for the mystery of England’s new housing policies to be revealed by Michael Gove, the last eight days have seen Wales and Scotland developing housing packages that interlock local taxation with planning control and licences: the close of the Welsh consultation on Council Tax and potential premiums for second homes and the qualification for business rates on holiday...

The Ministry of Justice has opened a consultation on changes to the Housing Legal Aid programme. The main proposals are: remodel the delivery to become a new Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service (HLPAS), incorporating both the existing service of advice and representation at court but also early legal advice before courtexpanding the scope of legal aid so that HLPAS providers can offer early legal advice on social welfare law matters to individuals facing procession proceedingscontracts for...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th November 2021 The national, rural and agricultural economies need more good businesses to face the expected challenges of this decade. For all the developing policies and larger national objectives, the economy and so living standards and public services rest on improving business performance. That means providing what people will pay well for, doing so efficiently with the greatest ratio between outputs and inputs –...

The Farming Investment Fund was launched on 16th November and, within that, the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) is now open for applications until 7th January 2022. Details are covered in this CAAV webnote The full and expanded list of items eligible for FETF with their specification and the grant payable on each is set out in this note on the Gov.uk website....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 11th November 2021 The theme of nature recovery has gathered political force over the last decade, since the Lawton Report, Making Space for Nature, and DEFRA’s 2011 Natural Environment White Paper. From David Cameron’s concern, the 25 Year Environment Plan published under Theresa May’s premiership to the new Environment Act, the theme, summarised by George Eustice in July 2020 is that: “This Government’s pledge is...

CAAV POWER CUT – THURSDAY 11TH NOVEMBER CAAV e-mails and other services are likely to be disrupted for most of Thursday 11th November as Western Power Distribution has warned that, with local high voltage works in hand, it is cutting off power to the area from 8.30am until later afternoon, though these times are taken as approximate. Arrangements have been made to divert the telephone lines and to handle examinations traffic. Normal service should then be resumed. Alternatively, please call...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th November 2021 Animal welfare concerns now have an increased prominence, breadth and reach in Government policies, with a political force that should not be underrated. The Government has two animal welfare Bills in Parliament: the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill and the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill – each with potentially significant consequences. The 2017 election crystallised the new moment. The Conservative...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th October 2021 While the Government wrestles on a day-to-day basis with many areas of policy, it shows a sustained strategic direction for environmental and, within that, agricultural policy. While buffeted by events, the realities of government and practical issues of implementation, the approach, pre-dating Boris Johnson’s premiership, can be summarised as: the goal of environmental improvement, embracing climate...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th October 2021 It is a complex world. Today’s disrupted supply chain issues overlay the adjustments of the post-Brexit process, in turn overlaying the long run pressures of climate change. The global disruption of the pandemic is now rippling down the seasons like water sloshing when carrying a bowl. The waves of the pandemic were followed by strong recoveries in demand but supply chains frustrated as Chinese ports...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th October 2021 Boris Johnson’s speech yesterday to the Conservative Party Conference is another step in the mystery of the Government’s developing land use policies – indeed of “levelling up”. The pattern is for his high level statements to be developed later by ministers. It could intend extensive land use change. After a paeon to the UK’s landscape of “untouched moorlands” and “broadleaf forests”...

DEFRA has updated its guidance on creating and using a soil management plan. This information may be of interest to those land managers entering into the Sustainable Farming Incentive Pilot or considering soil and environmental management of their land. The guidance is available here.

The RPA’s Rural Payments system will be unavailable overnight from 5pm on Tuesday 5th October to 8am on Wednesday 6th October 2021 while Release 6 is installed.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th September 2021 There is much discussion now about the need for farmers and landowners to be well advised. The need is clear with the scale of change and challenge for businesses and families: facing the withdrawal of Basic Payment in England and then Wales, with its prospective reduction and revision in Scotland and Northern Ireland. more commercial and changing markets and new technologiesthe effects of climate change...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 23rd September 2021 “‘Just in time’; that’s almost late”: a Cornish manufacturer’s description to me in December 2018 of the then supply chains. Current experience endorses his view of the weaknesses in ultra-efficient systems, lacking resilience when facing the problems we see on a national, continental and global basis. Stocks have been seen as a cost, an insurance provision not worth paying. The risks in...

Following their 4-yearly review of Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) designated areas in December 2020, DEFRA have announced that no substantial changes in the patterns of nitrate pollution in England have been found. Accordingly, designated areas remain the same for 2021 to 2024. A map of designated areas can be found here. More information, including how to challenge the inclusion of land within a designated area, can be found on the Government website....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th September 2021 The fascinating politics of the last few days reveal serious conundrums as the government navigates between its existing voters wanting protection and the needs of its potential voters.While little may have been done to reform or even fund social care, the threat of crippling care costs to existing homeowners and their heirs appears reduced. It is now reported that their concerns see teeth drawn from the...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th September 2021 The fledgling world of transactions for environmental commitments is very young and potentially very innocent. It may match the early days for solar panels after Feed-in Tariffs were introduced in spring 2010 when initial activity moved faster than understanding or clearer perspective on value, opportunity and risk. We see a shifting balance from agreements for running payments for actions (common in...

It has been announced that the deadline for submitting claims for the Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grants Scheme has been extended until 31 December 2021. See the Scottish Government website for more details.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 2nd September 2021 From the start of the pandemic, the Government’s concern has been to maintain contracts and activity in the economy. It has done so with measures such as the furlough scheme protecting employment contracts and grants and loans to tide businesses through. The resilience of the food supply chain passed its test last spring. As lockdown has eased, so the economy regained ground and unemployment stayed low....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th August 2021 All parts of the UK are now shaping future agricultural policy. This week’s consultation paper from Scotland and policy framework from Northern Ireland follow England’s implementation of change and the Welsh Government’s confirmation of next year’s Agriculture Bill.Policies for climate change and biodiversity have increasing priority alongside wider environmental concerns and business performance. The...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 19th August 2021 The old saying is that a farmer only controls what is under his boot. Weather, governments, markets and all are external, to be taken as they come. Looking to what can be controlled is particularly important at such a time of change. The problem is less uncertainty than perspective, seeing where value, reward and risk really lie. Too great a focus on the changing landscape of schemes draws the eye and mind...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 12th August 2021 The CAAV has now published new editions of the model FBTs for England: one for largely bare land agreements for two years or less, the other for longer agreements and more fully equipped land – weblinks given below. New editions for Wales were issued earlier in the year. Revisions last year responded to Brexit; these pick up on the new policies under the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill. They are...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 5th August 2021 Understanding risks is a key part of making a market work. A buyer wants to know exactly what is being bought; the seller wants to contain the risks in that. Market pressures, contract law, consumer protection and other interventions seek to help with means, like the Land Registry, to authenticate major assets. Environmental agreements, including biodiversity gain, have risks as much as any other transaction....

Clay tablets can last longer than parchment, papyrus and paper, keeping records of contracts, debts and now of the sale of part of a field in central Iraq four millennia ago. Dr Daniel Mansfield of the University of New South Wales has shown that, with the legal details, the Old Babylonian tablet Si.427 records the right angled triangles used to measure the areas and give more exact rectangles than in earlier tablet to get the boundaries right, towards 1900BC and over a thousand years before...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th July 2021 The further easing of pandemic restrictions enabled by widespread vaccination and past infections opens up thoughts of how the personal and social side of professional life, business and fellowship might resume. We are looking at what the new balance might be that, across the range of ways we work, combines efficient professional support and the social interaction of a wider life. While judging risk, there is...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd July 2021 The Government in London is clearing desks before Parliament goes into Recess tonight. Tuesday saw statements on planning policy for housing in England, one of the most significant controversies for the coming months. The bones of the policy set out in August 2020’s White Paper are for: 300,000 houses a year, allocated where house price/local earnings ratios show demand councils to identify growth...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 15th July 2021 The House of Lords Committee stage on the Environment Bill has considered biodiversity gain, the proposal that all development should ensure a net 10 per cent in biodiversity, whether on-site, off-site or by a payment to a fund, with 30 year agreements to secure the change. Alongside other costs and policies, it will guide where development might go amid the conflicting pressures from housing to wildlife,...

A Tamworth potato processor has been fined £6,500 for a pollution incident killing over 450 fish. The company pleaded guilty to an offence under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations, 2010. A total financial penalty of £21,264 was imposed on the company which included a contribution to prosecution costs of £10,000. The pollution resulted from a split pipe pumping into the lagoon, and a crude attempt had been made to repair it. This was discharging into a ditch then...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 8th July 2021 Government announcements will see yet more focus not only on mitigating climate change (just now modelled by the Office for Budget Responsibility to cost Government less than its Covid measures) but also on adapting to and preparing for the new conditions. The UK, leaning into the Atlantic at median latitudes, appears better buffered from extreme change than many parts of the world but that is relative. The...

On 6th July, The Welsh Minister for Climate Change, Julie James, set out an “ambitious three-pronged approach” to address the impact of second home ownership on Wales’ communities. The three-pronged approach will focus on: support - addressing affordability and availability of housing,regulatory framework and system - covering planning law and the introduction of a statutory registration scheme for holiday accommodation; anda fairer contribution - using national and local taxation...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 1st July 2021 Seven months after the Agriculture Act and England’s Agricultural Transition Plan with its new schemes, DEFRA has published its approach to payments for environmental land management above the regulatory baseline. The Welsh Government has talked of payments appropriate for the value of environmental services achieved. Both have high ambitions to achieve real environmental improvement, knowing that needs a new...

DEFRA is running three webinars to talk through its proposals in the lump sum exit scheme and delinking consultation with the opportunity to ask questions. The links to each webinar are: Tuesday 6th July 15:00-16:00 - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/defra-lump-sum-exit-scheme-delinking-consultation-webinar-tickets-160972076815 Wednesday 7th July 16:00-17:00 - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/defra-lump-sum-exit-scheme-delinking-consultation-webinar-tickets-161202572233 Thursday 8th...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 24th June 2021 In the more agricultural world of two hundred years ago, the economist David Ricardo summarised pricing in a market economy: “Corn is not high because rent is paid, but rent is paid because corn is high.” The price of corn rises with the demand for it since, in Adam Smith’s phrase of forty years earlier, “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production”. Production has no value unless...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 17th June 2021 The completion of the tenancy legislation for England under the Agriculture Act 2020 has prompted a new edition of the CAAV’s Schedule of Time Limits for Valuers and a moment for reflection before it goes to members with the News Letter, the Agricultural Tenancies Update and Value to an Incoming Tenant. There is continuity. With statutory tenancy regimes, previous Schedules have long aided members since...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 10th June 2021 The CAAV’s Annual National Conference, being held virtually on Thursday 24th June with support from the AMC, McParland Finn and Michelmores, is one key part of the Association’s life. Ordinarily, it is a major opportunity for renewing fellowship with other members and guests from across the country and further afield. As a conference, it covers current subjects with either a range or a focus that takes...

The Scottish Land Commission has launched a campaign aiming to connect people to the land around them, using inspiring stories to show how Scotland’s land ownership, use and management impacts the lives of the public. See the Scottish Land Commission website for more detail.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 27th May 2021 With new tenancy regulations published on Tuesday, this part of the Agriculture Act is now complete for England. Welsh regulations are expected as the newly elected Senedd gets to work. These Regulations set out the Act’s tenancy changes that most directly bear on England’s Agricultural Transition Plan’s two goals: a competitive agriculture and environmental improvement. Three years notice is given for...

The Environment Bill has today (26th May) returned to Parliament for Report Stage and Third Reading in the House of Commons. See the press release for more detail.

The Government is inviting local authorities in England and Wales to bid for up to £100,000 of funding to help develop their capacity to enforce the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards in the private rental sector. A lack of resources has been cited as one reason for the lack of policing of compliance with the Regulations to date....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 20th May 2021 Past the mourning for the Duke of Edinburgh, the purdah for devolved and local elections and Queen’s Speech, DEFRA policy statements are now coming thick and fast. The policies proposed in the 25 Year Environment Plan and the 2018 Health and Harmony paper are now becoming real, demonstrating the importance of advice to clients navigating the new world. Tuesday saw: the Tree Action Plan with plans for...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 13th May 2021 The Queen’s Speech is both ritual and manifesto, bringing the Lord and Commons together for an outline of the Government’s intended legislation and policies for the coming year. Tuesday’s Speech can be seen as the real start of this Government’s busy domestic programme, eighteen months after its election, having been preoccupied with Brexit and the pandemic, albeit with the Agriculture Act done. Now...

The RPA has now paid over 66,000 farmers their Basic Payment Financial Discipline reimbursement payments. The remaining 10,000, save for small number, are due to be paid in the next two days.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 6th May 2021 The gathering momentum of our apparent recovery from the pandemic, led by rural areas, sees more return to offices and meeting clients on farm, contractors or other parties in negotiations. Face-to-face contact offers immediacy, directness and subtleties, not mediated by a glowing screen with slight delays and connection failures, and brings the opportunity for the informal side conversations that help build the...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th April 2021 This CAAV e-Briefing was first issued a year ago as we absorbed the possible length and scale of the pandemic’s challenge and looked for means to support and brief members. The kind comments we have had over the year suggest that it has helped, while the CAAV has both sustained its activity and been recognised again in statute. Among the year’s themes has been the acceleration of change anyway caused by...

The application window for Forestry England’s new woodland creation scheme will close on 1 June and landowners are urged to apply in time. The Forestry England Woodland Partnership was launched in March, and is aimed at landowners including public bodies, environmental NGOs and farmers, offering an annual, guaranteed rent in return for a long-term lease on land of at least 50 hectares. The Forestry England Woodland Partnership is a chance to diversify landholding and farming businesses and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd April 2021 While the long-awaited DEFRA consultation on the lump sum option and delinking for Basic Payment has been twice delayed by the “purdah” periods for mourning and the Scottish, Welsh and local elections, the Prime Minister has this week announced a significantly more demanding target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Its potentially radical effects are described by the Financial Times as laying: “the...

The CAAV has published a new paper, Future Rural Land Uses in the UK, reviewing the pressures and opportunities for rural land.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 8th April 2021 Despite the late spring, the pace of policy change here is quickening and that will see change on the ground. We should shortly have DEFRA’s consultation on the lump sum option and delinking of Basic Payment in England. Whether or not the lump sum option for 2022 proves attractive, simply considering it draws attention to how little life is left for English Basic Payment entitlements. Entitlement...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 1st April 2021 In a sector of family businesses, a quarter or more of farms and estates might see generational change in any decade. Some may take longer, as where the business has no natural successor; others will come faster, whether by chance or necessity. This is likely to accelerate in the 2020s as the pressures for change intensify, often in circumstances requiring careful advice, personal support and good management....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th March 2021 Three recent decisions on utilities regulation are intended to enable more investment by them, resulting in more work on clients’ land. Since their privatisation, the main utility companies, with their access to the consumer’s doorstep, have been closely regulated. Concerns about affordability and hostile press coverage has put a public focus on regulating the prices charged for water, gas, electricity and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 11th March 2021. Barely two months after the EU Transition Period, the pace of post-EU policy development is sustained, especially in England and perhaps particularly with DEFRA. Without the 28 state, 3 institution haggling of the EU (the post-2020 CAP is still unresolved), George Eustice saw Brexit as the opportunity to do domestic policy better while some in Government already see the urgency imposed by a 2024 election....

Charles Cowap is delivering a 5-part training course with Ecosystems Knowledge Network on Applying a Natural Capital Approach. The course starts on April 19th and runs over five 90 minute sessions. Details are available on the EKN website.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th March 2021 Yesterday’s Budget heralds two years in which companies will be paid to invest in plant and machinery. An investment that would now have an 18 per cent capital allowance against tax will from next month have a 130 per cent capital allowance (the “super deduction”) and those that would get a 6 per cent allowance will be allowed at 50 per cent. A lack of business investment has been seen as a key part...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th February 2021 Do we know what it means for a landowner to enter into an agreement for carbon sequestration? What are the implications of “selling” carbon for the land and its users? Are we at risk of uncritical assumptions that: this is a significant source of value for an average landowner?that, being associated with positive change, it imposes no practical constraints? that now or soon is the time to sell? Simply...

It is being widely reported in the press this morning (24th February) that the Stamp Duty Land Tax holiday will be extended until the end of June. An announcement from HM Treasury is expected in next week's Budget.

Environment Secretary George Eustice set out more details on DEFRA's approach to future agricultural policy in his speech to the NFU Conference 2021 today (23rd February).

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th February 2021 Reflecting on conversations over the last week, one common theme has been the importance of looking beyond the immediate challenge. Seeing where the world is moving will aid better decisions that are more effective for the longer term when meeting immediate issues. The pressure for climate change mitigation and other environmental goals is now a central part of policies across the United Kingdom....

We are told that Rural Payments has this morning unexpectedly issued e-mails to Countryside Stewardship agreement holders reminding them to submit their claim. This appears to be quirk of the IT system and we are asked to assure members that these should be ignored with no action to be undertaken in response.

The CAAV is pleased to be assured today that work is now in hand to provide documents on Countryside Stewardship in pdf format. The rules for the GOV.uk website require material to be presented in html format for reasons of accessibility but the professional need for these documents to be available as pdfs is recognised and we hope to have them soon.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 11th February 2021 Economic shocks, like the pandemic, both bring damage and precipitate change shaping a new economy, as energy, skills and assets find new opportunities, often with new technologies. Only hindsight might tell which was which, as it is easier to see losers than those building the future. Accelerated change for physical retail, under long-run pressure and particularly burdened by business rates, sees talk...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th February 2021 With the current focus on the development of schemes and grants for public goods and productivity, it can be easy to overlook another key component of the new policies. This is the move to a “regulatory baseline” – simply put, what the law will require of farmers as it requires standards from others. Whether under England’s ELM, the Welsh Sustainable Farming Scheme, the Animal Health and Welfare...

Gordon Lyons has been appointed as the new Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland, replacing Edwin Poots who has stepped down for health reasons.

The Environment Bill 2019-21 has completed the Committee Stage in the House of Commons. A Report on Committee Stage has been published summarising what happened in the Committee and how the Bill has changed. It considers key Government and Opposition amendments. It is prepared in advance of the Bill's next stages (Report and Third Reading) scheduled for 26 January 2021.

Today, we have launched a new website to offer an improved service to members.

The December mailing, which includes the December News Letter and subscription invoices, was delayed but is expected to be with members during the week commencing 11th January. Please wait until your copy of the mailing has arrived before contacting the office with queries about your subscription invoice - thank you for your patience. The mailing also includes two new publications: Rural Arbitration in the UK and Beyond Brexit: The UK's New Agricultural Policies....

The CAAV office will be closed for Christmas from lunchtime on Tuesday 22nd December until Monday 4th January 2021

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 10th December 2020 As the CAP becomes part of the UK’s past, whatever the outcome of the current impasse with EU, so we have to look at the work to come. In England, the Transition Plan sets the direction but there is much work in its implementation with new tenancy regulations, consultations on the lump sum payment option for 2022 and then de-linking in 2024, the ELM Pilots starting in 2021, the development of the...

The Agricultural Transition Plan - the biggest shake-up in farming policy for over 50 years Jeremy Moody reviews the government’s new Agricultural Transition Plan which lays out the roadmap for phasing out direct payments (Basic Payment Scheme (BPS)) and phasing in the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme and productivity schemes. Also available on Apple, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Catch-up on previous episodes here....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th November 2020 What drives asset values? The basic answer is supply and demand, encapsulating human behaviour. Demand is often the key driver and supply the key constraint, with value where people want something rather than because someone has it to sell. Markets, summarising people’s thoughts, hopes and fears, express the balance between them and ever-changing prices influence actions. That restless movement guides...

The CAAV has been reviewing the arrangements for the November examinations in light of the developing situation with the Covid-19 virus and has prepared the following documents to assist candidates: - Arrangements for taking the Examinations under Coronavirus restrictions Examination Conditions for Remote Examinations – Supplementary Guidelines...

This blog by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 5th November 2020 England today joins Wales and Northern Ireland with new country-wide restrictions on social and economic life while Scotland’s Tiers were introduced on Tuesday, all responding to a rising Covid-19 incidence. Each country has struck its own difficult balance between disease control and continuity of activity and business. Ireland, France, Belgium and others have taken severe measures. This English lockdown...

A meeting tomorrow is to review the developing situation with the pandemic, including the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday evening of England-wide restrictions. We will circulate briefing after that on the approach being taken. With plans laid for the examinations to be held remotely, all candidates were e-mailed last week to ask them to: arrange a venue where they could take the papers in examination conditions test their link to the portal being used for this confirm to the...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 29th October 2020 With barely 60 days to the end of the EU transition period, we need to look at the dynamics for business change as domestic policies take effect. All new schemes – productivity, resilience, land management, environment, animal welfare and so on – would be funded from the one pot of money, level until 2024, putting Basic Payment rates under pressure. The potential rewards from productivity...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 22nd October 2020 The coronavirus pandemic and the measures to manage it perplex the more as it goes on. All, including government, are trying to understand it as it evolves while, over time, the challenge in balancing business and health seems to become more difficult. It now looks more complex than the simple hit and then recovery, with a V-shaped model for the economy, assumed at first. “Herd immunity” seems...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 15th October 2020 This has been a year of challenge, resilience and adaptation in keeping business going in the face of Covid-19. Business change has accelerated sharply, managing remote working and adopting new technologies. The longer the restrictions last the more some changes might remain afterwards, as we find a balance between old and new ways. The businesses that adapt successfully will be there for the future. The...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 8th October 2020 Over 4 years after the Referendum, we seem finally to be on the brink of new policies being introduced after the EU transition period ends with New Year’s Eve, with increasing effects on clients and for professional work for them. The Agriculture Bill, providing policy powers for DEFRA, Wales and Northern Ireland, is in its final stages before Royal Assent, perhaps completed in the next few days....

An independent review will consider ways to improve transport connections by road, rail, air and sea across the whole of the UK. Sir Peter Hendy's review, which is due to report in summer 2021, will look at the potential feasibility and economic case of options for: Reviewing air links within the UK Exploring the cost, practicality and demand for a new fixed link between Great Britain and Northern Ireland Boosting road and rail links to Scotland Cutting journey times to North Wales by...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 1st October 2020 Last Monday (28th September) saw two press reports illuminating possible futures. The widely publicised one was the Prime Minister’s “30 by 30” pledge to increase the area of the UK devoted “to nature” to 30 per cent by 2030. The one tucked away in the financial pages was the government’s support for insect farming companies, producing black soldier fly larvae in sheds as poultry and fish feed....

Having an arbitrator is about to be made more practical, as the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV) launches its service Facilitating Dispute Resolution. The Agriculture Bill is to give the CAAV the power to appoint arbitrators in England and Wales, meaning it can now appoint official arbitrators in farm tenancy disputes. With that proposed standing, the CAAV is also developing a broader service – launched at the CAAV’s Annual Conference - for all forms of dispute resolution...

The Welsh Government has made £7.4 million available for improving access to the countryside, investing in green infrastructure and improving sustainability. The funds will be awarded to National Parks, AONBs and Local Authorities. Further details can be found on the Welsh Government website.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 10th September 2020 We are now 16 weeks to the end of the EU transition period. If a deal is to be in place for 1st January, it needs substantial agreement by mid-October. This week has highlighted the possibility that the negotiating mandates preclude a deal acceptable to both the UK and the EU. Aside from fisheries, the major problems are understood to lie around the relationship between future UK rules and evolving EU...

The Prince's Countryside Fund has opened registration for the Prince's Farm Resilience Programme 2020. The Programme enables family farm businesses to access free business skills and environmental training to help improve business viability. More detail can be found on the PCF website where there is a link to register interest in taking part....

England's Housing Minister Robert Jenrick has announced £11.5 billion of new funding for affordable homes in England which is intended to deliver 180,000 homes in the period to 2026. The homes will be a mix of tenures, including a new Shared Ownership model and affordable rented property. Further information can be found on the GOV.UK website.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 3rd September 2020Most of farming faces the same economic problems as it faced before the pandemic. The poor harvest emphasises the concerns about poor cash flow as farming goes into 2021, facing whatever may come as the EU transition period ends.That draws attention to the long run issues of poor profitability and productivity growth that might now be tackled more effectively. Recent DEFRA data show that barely...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 27th August 2020 With the long, fraught arguments over telecommunications masts, the last fortnight has doubled the number of Tribunal decisions on valuation, developing a picture of what Tribunals consider to be the main arguments. CTIL v Fothringham (in the Lands Tribunal for Scotland) follows EE v Islington in considering the rent for a new Code agreement. Vodafone v Hanover considers the rent on the renewal of a lease...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 13th August 2020. The proposals in the two planning consultation papers issued last week for England appear to be a genuinely radical shock for the system. They go much further than the zoning proposals of the headlines, shaking the 70 year old foundations of planning and what local planning authorities do. Focussed on housing, rather than other development, the force of the proposals lies in their approach to housing...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 6th August 2020 A month ago, I wrote here:“The interruption to public life and the economy created by the pandemic is now both a prompt and political cover for change in the planning system that would be more controversial in other circumstances.”Today’s White Paper on the English planning system follows the recent extensions to permitted development rights. We need to look clearly at what has been put on the table.It...

The Government has published its planning White Paper: Planning for the Future. A public consultation runs until 29th October 2020.

The Government has released details of hundreds of projects which will be supported by the £900 million Getting Building Fund in England, including housing development, regeneration schemes, education and healthcare projects. The projects will be delivered through LEPs and details can be found on the GOV.UK website....

Part One of the National Food Strategy has been published and can be found at https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 23rd July 2020 George Eustice, DEFRA Secretary of State, has consistently argued that the opportunity of Brexit is to “do policy better”. As developing post-Brexit policies and the emerging post-Covid policies blend, he has now set this argument out for environmental policy. Those concerned with the management of rural land should see the scale of the ambition for such issues as biodiversity, water quality and air...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th July 2020 We have this year seen parts of the modern economy unravel, enormous injections of public money to support continuity, the acceleration of business change and the possibility of working with virus restrictions for some time to come. The response to that has been to focus on re-growing the economy and unlocking productivity improvement in the wider economy. With a probably smaller economy next year, there may...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th July 2020 Much of members’ work is about advising and negotiating for parties to achieve an agreement. Sometimes it needs a third party to help them or to decide the matter. That is dispute resolution. That help may come from early neutral evaluation or from a mediator; the answer may come from an expert or an arbitrator. With the Agriculture Bill’s proposal for the President of the CAAV to have statutory status...

It is being widely reported in the press that tomorrow (8th July) Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce a Green Homes Grant, which will offer grants to homeowners to improve insulation in their property. We will provide further briefing to members when full details are known.

The Prime Minister has made a speech setting out an ambitious programme to drive the economy forward in the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. In it he pledged to tackle investment in schools and hospitals, build flood defences and plant 30,000 ha of trees per year and to invest in transport infrastructure, including a study of transport links to the four countries of the United Kingdom. The Government press release can be found on the GOV.UK website....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 25th June 2020 UK agriculture typically earns some £22 billion from food production and draws some £3 billion in subsidies with an ex-subsidy surplus of £1 to £2 billion. Looking more closely, of that £22 billion of farming’s commercial activity, in descending order: almost 20 per cent comes from dairying with BPS equal to 6% of sales almost 20 per cent from grazing livestock with BPS equal to 34% of sales...

Advice and guidance on how the Tribunals across the UK are dealing with cases during the Covid-19 restrictions is available online. This includes information for applicants on how to submit applications during the restrictions and what level of service is currently being supported. In most cases there are likely to be delays in acknowledging and handling applications while most staff are still not working in their usual offices. The use of email is encouraged rather than post. For England and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 18th June 2020 The Agriculture Bill, moving to its Committee stage in the House of Lords, means that the CAAV is working to be ready for the President’s role as a statutory appointer of arbitrators under the 1986 and 1995 Acts. That work is also looking more broadly at all forms of dispute resolution, with a wider application than tenancies and across the United Kingdom. The aim is a service to the rural economy that...

Northern Ireland's Economy Minister has announced that non-essential retail premises in the province can re-open from Friday 12th June, provided that the necessary safety measures are observed for customers and staff and that there is no increase in new cases of Covid-19.

The Government has announced that the ban on evictions from private and social rented housing, put in place to protect tenants during the coronavirus pandemic, will be extended to 23rd August 2020.

Jeremy Moody recently presented a webinar with Land Management 2.0 on ‘Tomorrow’s Work: Perspective on the Future of Land Management’. You can watch a full recording of the presentation below.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 4th June 2020 Looking beyond the virus restrictions, virtually every lobby group argues that its cause is further validated by the experience of the pandemic and the measures taken to tackle it. Those competing perceptions will frame the arguments we will see later this year. The largest arguments may be over the shape of future economic policy. Will there be a simple imperative to achieve recovery or will that be...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th May 2020 The last two weeks have seen an easing in England of the Covid-19 restrictions on the property market, recovering activity in construction and increasing valuation work. With more negotiations and transactions, we may see how the property markets have moved. After 50 days of restrictions, there is the pent-up demand from many of the estimated 373,000 transactions said to have been stalled by the lockdown and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 21st May 2020 Covid-19 now sits alongside Brexit as a radical accelerant of business change. The impact of the restrictions has been described as fast-forwarding business practice from March 2020 to, say, March 2025, with: the accelerated use of the internet, home working with remote contacts with clients, and the accelerated shock for much of retail and business use of public transport, aviation and hospitality. How might...

The organisers of the Oxford Farming Conference have announced that it will be held as a one day digital event on Thursday 7th January 2021. From June to December 2020, OFC will hold monthly webinars to debate themes from previous conferences. To register for the free OFC Bitesize webinars, go to https://www.ofc.org.uk/conference/2021

New Regulations have been made in Scotland which will prevent landlords from letting private rented residential property if it has an EPC in Band F or G. Originally due to come into force on 1st April 2020, their introduction was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Kate Russell explains what the Regulations will require and offers some tips for landlords to plan head for their introduction. Also available on Apple, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Catch-up on previous episodes here....

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th May 2020 The measures now taken in England to ease the Covid-19 restrictions on the property and development are very welcome as a contribution to movement in the economy. Some construction sites never stopped, others had re-started working and some transactions continued. Nonetheless, developers stalled much work, not risking more money on half-built houses that might not be sold, starving the pipeline for development...

The Agriculture Bill passed its final stages in the House of Commons yesterday (13th May 2020) and should be on track to pass through Parliament by this summer. Further information is available in DEFRA's Blog.

Estate agents and letting agents may re-open in England as the latest public health regulations, which come into force today (13th May 2020) now permit people to leave their homes in order to Visit estate or letting agents, developer sales offices or show homes View residential properties to look for a property to buy or rent Prepare a residential property to move in Move home Visit a residential property to undertake any activities required for the rental or sale of that property....

The Government has announced that it will extend its furlough scheme to the end of October. From August, furloughed workers will be able to return to work part-time and employers will be asked to pay a contribution to the cost of furlough salaries. Further detail is available on the GOV.UK website.

Wales' Rural Affairs Minister, Lesley Griffiths, has announced funding for eligible dairy farmers affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Where dairy farmers have lost more than 25% of their income in April and May, they should be entitled for up to £10,000 funding to cover 70% of lost income. Further information is available on the gov.wales website.