* This online survey will end at the close of play on Monday 4th May 2015
Wayleave compensation comprises two elements divided between owners and occupiers – owner/occupiers receive both payments.
It’s been over 20 years since a survey of this kind has taken place, so we need you tell us how pylons, poles or other electricity line supports on your land are affecting your farming practices and impacting on your business. We need to gather this information from you, to ensure that you are being compensated accurately and fairly.
The Wayleave Payments panel is made up of all the Distribution Network Operators across the UK eg Western Power. The panel negotiate occupier wayleave payment rates with the NFU, CLA and the Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) and then supply advisory rates to the Energy Networks Association (ENA). The NFU highlighted back in 2013 that it was not in agreement with the advisory rates.
These are assessed under two headings:
- Annual wayleave payment which addresses the right to hold the apparatus on the land.
- Annual disturbance payment for the interference with agricultural operations.
The aim of the online survey is to provide a representative view from farmer/growers of the changing practices in arable, grassland and vegetable farming which would prompt investigation into changing levels of wayleave payment.
This survey is being run by ADAS on behalf of the NFU and the ENA.
To increase the reliability of this investigation, it is planned that the online survey will be followed up by on the ground calculations. The results of this online survey could steer what type of operations are looked at, so it’s vitally important we get as many responses as possible.
In 1994 ADAS published its report into the Review of Electricity Wayleave Payments, which was the culmination of a two year study for the ENA into the five components of the payment system, as well as detailed measurements in the field for a variety of agricultural operations on both arable and grassland holdings.
Payments are drawn from five separate headings:
- Loss of income from the site occupied by the apparatus
- Extra time resulting from circumnavigating structures in fields
- Weed control costs under and around structures
- Loss of yield due to the presence of the structures
- Wasted variable inputs caused by the presence of the structures