Please note, SFI is currently closed for new applications.
You’ve probably not come across a SHINE (Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England) or HEFER (Historic Environment Farm Environment Record) unless you’ve been in Countryside Stewardship.
They are both relevant to SFI: some SFI actions can’t be done on historic or archaeological feature. On grassland, this severely restricts your SFI action selection.
The NFU continues to lobby Defra and Historic England for changes.
The NFU is aware of issues unfolding for some SFI23 agreement holders with herbal leys (SAM3) in their agreements.
What are historic or archaeological features?
Historic or archaeological features include:
- non-designated historic or archaeological features (also known as ‘SHINE’ features – Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England)
- registered parks or gardens
- registered battlefields
- scheduled monuments.
Do I need a HEFER?
Suppose you intend to carry out any SFI actions on land that has historic or archaeological features, as part of the application process. In that case, you are required to request SFI Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (SFI HEFER).
If you are applying for CSHT (Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier) then you’ll need a HEFER generated for CSHT agreements. More information will be published when the CSHT scheme guidance is published this summer.
You will need a new HEFER for each new SFI or CSHT application.
The HEFER will tell you about known historic or archaeological features and how they affect your SFI application.
If your SFI or CSHT HEFER identifies a scheduled monument, you may need to get consent from Historic England before you do your selected SFI actions on that land.
If land with historic or archaeological features is ineligible for an SFI or CSHT action, this only affects the area where the feature is located in a land parcel. You can apply for the SFI action on the remaining area in the land parcel if it’s eligible for the action.
Why are grasslands an issue?
Defra’s decisions on which SFI actions can be used on historic or archaeological features are based on assumed land management practices. Most arable actions are eligible on SHINE features, as Defra has assumed there’s a plough line.
For the grassland actions, choice is restricted, as no plough line is assumed.
This means herbal leys (CSAM3 or SAM3 £382/ha) and legume leys (CNUM2 or NUM2 £102/ha) cannot be applied for historic or archaeological features. The establishment of the leys may damage earthworks. The deep rooting structure of some species may damage archaeology. Even if a herbal or legume ley is already established on the feature, SFI is unable to fund this.
Historic England or the local authority environment adviser cannot give permission for these actions to be used.
SFI23 agreements
The NFU is aware some members have had their quarterly payments withheld. This is because the RPA is carrying out additional eligibility checks for the first year of the agreement.
The RPA is looking at whether historic features, as captured on the SHINE (Selected Heritage Inventory), have ineligible herbal or legume leys (SAM3 or NUM3) on them. Where this is the case, the RPA will be writing out to agreement holders removing the ineligible area from the agreement. This will lead to the first year of payments being reduced by the ineligible area.
The NFU is asking the RPA to process these quickly. Eligibility does need to be addressed before the annual declaration can be issued.
SFI – grasslands on historical and archaeological features
The actions that were available included very low input grasslands (CLIG3 or LIG1/2 £151/ha), historic and archaeological features on grassland (HEF6 £55/ha for five years) and winter bird food (CLIG2 or IGL2 £515/ha). These are not great actions for a productive farming system. Support is also available in SFI for historic waterbodies (HEF8), traditional farm buildings (HEF1/HEF2) and the control of scrub on features (HEF5).
CSHT – historical and archaeological features
There are seven heritage specific actions in the CSHT offer.
These include managing historic and archaeological features in grassland (CHS5 £55/ha per year), reduced cultivation depths (CHS3 £115/ha per year) and restricted crop establishment depth (CHS9 £257/ha per year) on features, as well as actions which take features out of cultivation (CHS2 £613/ha per year).
Support is also available for historic waterbodies (CHS6 £2,512/ha), historic water meadow irrigation (CHS7 £863/ha per year) and the control of scrub on features (CHS4 £215/ha/year). Some of these actions will not be suitable for productive farming systems. More information on CSHT is available on our essential information page.
NFU work
The NFU has been lobbying Defra and Historic England for a better offer for grassland farmers.
The constraints on historic and archaeological features don’t recognise more productive grassland. It should be possible to allow SFI herbal and legume leys, with safeguards, on grasslands. This could be as simple as a species mix used, excluding deep-rooting plants.
The NFU continues to engage with Defra and Historic England, taking them on farm to discuss the implications and potential solutions.
Be aware of the regulations
The Environmental Impact Assessment (Agriculture) Regulations 2006 may apply at the end of your agreement. If land over 2ha has been reverted to grassland for a period of time and holds historic features, it will need an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) screening decision to convert those grasslands to arable. Equally, if the grassland has become semi-natural during the agreement, again an EIA screening decision from Natural England will be required if you wish to improve productivity or convert to arable. You may need a screening decision to increase productivity on uncultivated or semi-natural land under 2ha if that land is “regionally significant”, meaning it has heritage or landscape features of at least regional importance, or contains a scheduled ancient monument. This could include land in Protected Landscapes.
Ordinarily, scheduled monument consent is needed before works that will affect a scheduled monument can be carried out. However, certain agricultural works benefit from a ‘class consent’, meaning you can carry on with agricultural operations that may be damaging to the scheduled monument, such as, continue ploughing, but you cannot lawfully carry out particularly damaging operations, such as ploughing deeper. The class consent is lost if the activity has ceased for a period of six years or longer, and scheduled monument consent would be needed before the activity could be resumed.
This is a brief overview of a couple of the key regulations, but it would be important to take independent advice to understand whether you can lawfully carry out certain actions on your land.
NFU CallFirst – 0370 845 8458 – can offer free initial advice to NFU members and refer you to an NFU legal panel firm for further advice about your specific circumstances.
Don’t agree with the HEFER?
You can query SHINE features found on your land.
The HEFER uses a data set provided by local Historic Environment Record (HER) offices. Queries need to be raised with your local office. Contact details for all English HERs is available on the Heritage Gateway.
Need more information on SHINE or HEFERs?
Following the NFU’s lobbying Defra and Historic England have published a comprehensive list of FAQs on the Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (HEFER) Portal that provides more detail than we can in a short article.
