Paragraph 16 Landscape features

Changes not yet applied. Later legislation changes this provision in ways not yet written into the text below:

Sch. para. 18(2) words inserted by Common Agricultural Policy (Single Farm Payment and Support Schemes and Cross-Compliance) 2009 reg. 17
Sch. Pt. 5 inserted by Common Agricultural Policy (Single Farm Payment and Support Schemes and Cross-Compliance) 2009 reg. 18
sch. para. 11(2)(b) words substituted by Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (Consequential Modifications) 2010 art. 8

(1)

A farmer must prevent the deterioration of non-productive landscape features on the land, including shelter belts, copses and ponds, except with the prior written consent of–

(a)

the Scottish Ministers; or

(b)

by or under any enactment, another authority as shall be notified to the farmer by the Scottish Ministers when the farmer applies to them for consent.

(2)

In this paragraph, “deterioration” means–

(a)

in relation to shelter belts and copses–

(i)

not maintaining functional stock proof fences around those features; or

(ii)

severe poaching where feeding or other livestock husbandry practices have occurred within those features because the farmer has not reduced the livestock numbers so as to cause the turf to recover to the extent that there is no longer a predominantly muddy surface by any time during the growing season in the calendar year following the date when that severe poaching first occurred; or

(b)

not maintaining ponds on the holding by allowing eutrophication or by drainage.

(3)

In this paragraph “severe poaching” means the cutting up of turf to the destruction of the underlying vegetation leading to a predominantly muddy surface from trampling by livestock.