A letter has recently gone to the Secretary of State Andrea Leadsom on behalf of a number of organisations, expressing concerns on the treatment of commons.
The NFU was involved in the production of the letter and you can find out more here.
One of our concerns is the accuracy of the recently-published BPS commons data on gov.uk.
It was published to show the eligible area of commons, along with the total livestock units and the hectares per livestock unit, to enable commoners to work out the basis for the ‘commons’ element of their overall BPS payment.
We’ve had reports from some members that the eligible area of some commons has reduced substantially. Back in early 2015, the RPA mapped commons for the first time to ensure ineligible features were accounted for. So it could be correct that the eligible area has reduced if your common has a lot of ineligible features, or it may be that the person doing the mapping was a bit too enthusiastic and inadvertently took out more land by mistake.
As a reminder, the same rules on eligible/ineligible features applies to both common and non-common land. The RLE 1 guidance gives a list of the non-agricultural areas and features that need to be mapped at annex 1, available here.
We are hearing reports that commoners are still awaiting top-up payments for their 2015 BPS.
Progress seems to be painfully slow, although payments do seem to be going out on a weekly basis. We have regular meetings with the RPA and do stress the importance of getting these monies out as soon as possible.
There is however some good news on 2016 BPS payments. Mark Grimshaw (RPA chief executive) said at the recent public accounts committee that a number of commons claims would be among those paid in early December, and not left to the end this time around. The 2016 payment window opens in less than a month, so only time will tell if he keeps to his word. Mr Grimshaw had already stated earlier in the year, that 90% of payments would be made in December. Be reassured that NFU will not let him forget what he has promised.