Rural Payments and Services

The aim of this option is to benefit corncrakes by providing areas of tall vegetation in spring and throughout the summer to allow them to nest and raise broods successfully.

Grassland that contains clumps of tall plants such as iris, nettles, meadowsweet, cow parsley, hogweed, reed sweetgrass, common reed, rush and butterbur is eligible.

These clumps of plants must be distributed across the field, and not exclusively confined to field margins or small parts of the field.

Swards matted with dead plant material from previous seasons are not eligible.

You should not include areas of land covering rocks, scree, water, dense bracken etc. We will check this using the same approach we use to check land for the Basic Payment Scheme.

Assessing your land eligibility

You can check if this option is available on your holding using the search targeting tool which can be found on any of the following AECS guidance pages:

AECS Home

Eligibility

How to Apply

Management Options and Capital Items

Capital Items

You must identify on a map the locations of the area to be managed.

You must manage the same location and extent each year for the duration of your contract.

• you must exclude livestock from 1 March to 15 August inclusive
• after the exclusion period you must graze the sward to remove annual growth to avoid a build-up of matted dead plant material
• do not cut, roll or harrow from 1 March to 15 August inclusive
• do not spray, except for the spot-treatment of injurious weeds (requires prior written notification) or treatment of invasive species (requires prior written approval)
• you must maintain a diary

You can claim £241.50 per hectare per year.

Note:

The Stock Fence capital item is not available for this option, however the temporary electric fencing element of the Scare and Temporary Electric Fencing capital item is available to new applicants and also to returning applicants proposing to manage new land under this option, where only a part of the field is being managed.

The inspectors will check:

• you have managed the same location and extent each year for the duration of your contract
• you have excluded livestock from 1 March to 15 August inclusive
• after the exclusion period you grazed the sward
• you have not cut, rolled or harrowed from 1 March to 15 August inclusive
• you have not sprayed, unless with prior written notification or approval as appropriate
• you have maintained a diary

Supporting guidance is available for this option.

Section	Change
Payment	‘Note’ added mid February 2022 explaining position on fencing for this option.
Spatial targeting	Updated target area map.

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