From the 1st of January 2023, all Environmental Stewardship agreements will run under domestic terms and conditions and the rules on extending agreements will change. Bringing it in line with Countryside Stewardship, Defra will be offering existing agreement holders extensions of 5 years.
Higher Level Stewardship agreement extensions
Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) is part of the Environmental Stewardship scheme and is the predecessor to Countryside Stewardship (CS).
At the moment, there are approximately 8,500 HLS agreements delivering important environmental benefits on our most valuable habitats.
Despite the changes, before taking up a 5 year extension it is worth checking whether the scheme still works for you and your business, and whether all of the options are still eligible. Major changes to extension offers can be requested, but CXCS have been informed that recoveries of money are likely to be incurred.
Moving to new schemes
From the 1st of January 2023 Defra will be taking a more flexible approach and all CS and HLS agreement holders will be able to leave their agreements early, without penalty, if they are offered a place on another environmental scheme. For example, if you’re an HLS agreement holder and you apply for CS in 2024, or if you’re an HLS/CS agreement holder and you’re offered a place in Local Nature Recovery.
It is planned to roll the Local Nature Recovery scheme out gradually and it will be offered, in full, from the end of 2024.
Next steps
Defra have written to existing Environmental Stewardship agreement holders to let them know about these changes so they can prepare. If your Environmental Stewardship agreement does not end in 2023, Defra will write to you to set out your options for extensions later in 2023 or 2024. They will also share more details for the extension arrangements for your agreement.
The new environmental land management schemes will be fully rolled out by the end of 2024. Find out more here: Environmental land management schemes: overview – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
