Rural Payments and Services

The aim of this item is to improve water-use efficiency by collecting and storing water in an irrigation lagoon. This will also help to protect water quality at times of low water availability due to low river flows.

The land must be within a catchment which drains to water bodies that are significantly impacted because of abstraction for agriculture.

This item can stand alone or be part of a wider application. Standalone irrigation applications will be assessed on their own merits and against other standalone irrigation lagoon applications if budget pressures constrain our ability to approve applications.

Standalone Irrigation Lagoon applications (lagoon and underground drainage only) must be submitted in the period 03 February 2025 to 22 April 2025. Successful applications will receive contracts from May 2025 onwards.

Applications for Irrigation Lagoons that also include AECS management proposals should be submitted in the main Agri-Environment window 3 February to 12 June 2025 however, successful applicants will not receive a contract until 2026.

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

• The application must contain a summary of the business and its activity including details of the crops to be irrigated and any existing water storage facilities that are used for irrigation purposes;
• You must provide a map clearly showing the proposed location of the lagoon and any existing irrigation lagoon(s) (where applicable);
• You must produce a diffuse pollution steading assessment if the lagoon will be filled from water collected from steading roofs;
• If the lagoon is distant from the steading and not filled from water collected at a steading then there is no need for a diffuse pollution steading assessment;
• You must provide full detail in a management statement of how the proposed lagoon is to be filled (method) and any overflow managed. The management statement must include the design and dimensions of the lagoon (width, length and depth), the storage calculations including current and proposed storage, the calculated water usage (using appropriate local rainfall figures) and also detail the current (where applicable) and proposed irrigation method(s) e.g. piped underground irrigation system, mobile reels etc. A map should be provided to support the management statement;
• You must hold an abstraction licence or registration from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and a copy of the licence or the licence number or registration should be provided with the application. If you do not currently hold a licence or registration authorisation from SEPA, you would need to apply to SEPA for the required authorisation and have the licence or registration in place by the time you submit your application.
• The lagoon must be off-line (i.e. there should be no impounding works which hold back flows in wetlands, rivers, lochs and estuaries). SEPA should be contacted by email at srdp@sepa.org.uk for advice to ensure that environmental standards for the proposed site are being met and to allow any feedback to be incorporated into design/location;
• Where proposed location of any lagoon is on, adjacent or near to a designated site, Nature Scot and or Historic Environment Scotland should be contacted for comment and any mitigations required reflected in the application;
• The Agriculture, Land Drainage and Irrigation Projects (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations apply therefore you must obtain planning permission, or have confirmation from the planning authority that planning permission is not required for your proposed lagoon. Confirmation from the planning authority that planning permission will or will not be required should be presented with the application however in recognition of lead in times to gain confirmation we can accept presentation by 30 June at the latest. Letters or other communications that suggest that the works may come under various planning class provisions are not acceptable. Where full planning permission is confirmed as a requirement for your project, you will not be issued with a contract until you have obtained planning permission and evidenced that to your case officer. Applications that do not require planning permission will be subject to screening under the Agriculture, Land Drainage and Irrigation Projects (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations as part of application processing. Where local authority confirmation that planning is not required is not presented with the application, the screening process will be delayed until that confirmation is received which may lead to delays in contract issue.
• Where a proprietary lining is used, a receipt for the liner will be required.

Note that successful stand alone irrigation lagoon applicants in 2025 will be issued with contracts from May 2025. The expectation is that work must be completed and claimed by the 31 March 2026. There is no ability to defer the work to a future financial year. Applicants must consider their ability to substantially complete the work before 31 March 2026 before applying for this option.

Irrigation lagoon projects that will not be completed by the 31st of March 2026 but have been substantially started will be able to submit interim claims where the following conditions are met:

• the construction works have been substantially started (by that we mean that the works already completed are equal to or exceed the value on the schedule of works titled “Irrigation lagoon with proprietary liner or irrigation lagoon without proprietary liner” Demonstrable by contractor invoice for staged payments and bank statements confirming transaction along with the provision of photographs showing work completed to date).
• this would mean that the claims were interim in name only as the values claimed would be the final values from the schedule of works which ultimately would be paid.
• commitment to supply confirmation that the project has been completed to required standards by end September 2026.

This flexibility is provided on the basis that the project is ultimately completed to the required standard by the end of September 2026. If the project is not completed or found not to be up to standard when it is completed, then RPID reserve the right to recover the grant funding paid out in part or in full.

Irrigation lagoon

The maximum payment for this option is restricted to £40,000 per business:

• £2.94 per cubic metre without a proprietary liner
• £8.20 per cubic metre with a proprietary liner

Collection of run-off from farm steading roofs:

• underground drainage – £35.46 linear metre

The inspectors will check:

• the location and extent of any irrigation lagoon
• that you have a receipt for a proprietary liner
• the length in metres of drainage to the lagoon
• the lagoon is offline and there are no impounding works which hold back flows in wetlands, rivers, lochs and estuaries

Supporting guidance is available for this item.

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