Funding Schemes

ELMs offer long-term, sustainable funding opportunities for farmers, landowners and land managers in the Liverpool City Region and nationwide. There are three ELMs schemes:

Sustainable Farming Incentive (farm level) | Countryside Stewardship (local level) | Landscape Recovery (long-term, landscape scale changes)

The exact nature of each element of ELMs is yet to be detailed and Defra recently (June 2023) undertook a review of these. It is strongly recommend to keep up to date with developments to ELMs. Read the overview here and the June 2023 update here.

Forestry Commission England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO) is open  for landowners, land managers and public bodies to apply for support to create new woodland, including through natural colonisation. Payments can be in excess of £10,000 per hectare for areas as small as one hectare. EWCO is just   one of a suite of Forestry Commission initiatives to support woodland creation and tree planting across England, other grants available include:

Woodland Creation Planning Grant | Local Authority Treescapes Fund | Urban Tree Challenge Fund | Trees for Climate Fund

There are also  the Woodland Trust's MOREwoods and MOREhedges schemes, that are offering 75% of costs for projects targeting these habitats.

The National Sites Network of nationally and internationally designated sites (Special Protection Areas, Special Areas of Conservation, Ramsar’s) are very sensitive to recreational disturbance due to increasing populations driven by new residential development. In order to address the increased pressure from new developments, a number of RMS have been set up by Local Authority partnerships, which aim to regulate access of recreational visitors, monitor the level of ongoing effects, improve habitats for designated features and provide alternative areas to attract people away from designated sites.

RMS are usually secured and adopted into local planning policy via a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), the cost is covered by the charge imposed on developers; usually a payment per dwelling built in the zone of influence, and/or provision of bespoke mitigation. This funds the creation, enhancement or extension of strategically located country parks, or to improve visitor facilities or access at other outdoor and nature spaces.

Although these schemes were originally set up with European sites in mind, the premise is one that could be widened to other designated sites (e.g. SSSIs) or sensitive ecology that could be affected by increasing residential development. However creating an SPD can be challenging and take a lot of time. It   requires legal, environmental and political expertise, as well as collaboration and compromise between Local Authorities, and can be very political.

MEAS and Local Authorities are in the final stages of publishing a Recreation Mitigation Strategy <LINK> for the Liverpool City Region and West Lancashire. This includes provision for mitigation measures on the designated coast and also in parks and open spaces which are called Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspaces as part of an integrated suite of measures. Also check out the Thames Basin Heaths Delivery Framework as an example.

RMS tariff payments can be spent on the same land as payments for ecosystem services provided that the interventions are for different purposes. This can be secured through obligations and legal agreements and strong evidence of interventions, outputs and effectiveness is essential.

The Defra Farmer Facilitation Fund is part of the Countryside Stewardship scheme and there were funds launched in 2022 and 2023, there may  be furhter opportunities in 2024. This fund is designed to support individuals who act as facilitators to bring together groups of farmers, foresters and other land managers to improve environmental outcomes in their local area. They are pivotal to the early development of Farmer Clusters which can develop landowner-led environmental projects and initiatives.

Be aware of local initiatives, strategies and policies related to the climate and biodiversity emergencies, and the needs of local businesses and local authorities to be seen to be acting to mitigate these. Try to consider options which could benefit Local Authorities and the local area politically, economically and socially.

Green social prescribing is about using exercise, activities and access to nature outdoors to improve people’s health and wellbeing as part of the management of specified health conditions. The market is currently in its infancy in the UK with no models of sustainable finance for land managers. It currently mostly consists of groups of GP surgeries referring patients to local providers who will engage them in a range of health and wellbeing activities. These activities include walking, cycling, working on conservation projects, community gardening and food-growing projects, and outdoor meditation. Most of the service providers are either volunteers or are small organisations reliant on securing sporadic grants to fund their work.

Opportunities to capitalise on this would focus upon the development of suitable greenspaces and natural habitats/environments which have been designed to consider the needs of the human population. NIAs within the Liverpool City Region project area could offer many opportunities to incorporate the requirements of green social prescribing within its design and management plans. Income streams could include investment from the NHS/private healthcare sector, Local Authorities, employers, health insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies.

The Wildlife Trusts have just published a report titled ‘a natural health service’ , which shows that a thriving, wildlife-rich environment benefits people’s physical and mental health. Within the LCR the Mersey Forest has led the way in this area with projects such as the Natural Health Service and Nature4Health. 

It is important that projects focusing on this income stream also target other Ecosystem Services and markets, e.g. a new country park would have obvious health & wellbeing benefits, but could also be designed to take advantage of BNG. Combining health & wellbeing with recreation (e.g. ecotourism, sports activities) markets would have overlap in the benefit provision, and it would open up a wider range of potential markets, beneficiaries and investors.