The Senior Specialist: Public Access, Recreation and Rights of Way to attend, to provide a verbal update to Members.
Minutes:
Andrew Mackintosh, Senior Specialist: Public Access, Recreation and
Rights of Way at Natural England (NE) attended the meeting to provide a verbal
update on the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELM's). He confirmed that
· There had been an announcement in
autumn 2024 following the Yorkshire Farming Conference that support would be
available for agriculture in general.
· There were a number of options
available within the Landscape Recovery component of ELM’S which included the
reintroduction of permissive access.
More details had been published in December 2024 which detailed the payments
that landowners and managers would receive through land use for permissive open
access, bridleway and cycle route access, and access for users with reduced
mobility. Educational access would
continue to run as a capital item.
· The schemes where only for five year
agreements, which would have implications on matters of access after this
period.
· All Landscape Recovery projects would
have a public access improvement element to them, but there would be
flexibility as to what those improvements would entail.
· Each project would be required to
demonstrate how they would engage with the local communities and met the public
access needs of a particular area.
· There had been two calls for bids to
develop landscape recovery projects, and NE were currently assessing Site
Access Plans for Round 1 project applications.
These applications had primary and secondary objectives, of which public
access was a secondary objective, but it was a compulsory objective with each
of the respective projects expected to detail how they intended to improve
access within their project area.
· 24 project applications had been
received in Round 1, with a further 34 project applications for Round 2.
· Some of the projects showed that there
was much potential to make a range of access improvements via this scheme for
the areas involved.
· From the Round 1 applications the
project local to the NYC area which had received funding was the Three Dales
Project, and from Round 2 there were three projects local to the area: the
Heart of the Dales, the Ure Dales, and finally, Linking Levisham.
· There was a requirement for each
project to liaise with the local Highways Authority and the Local Access
Forums.
· Although on DEFRA’s agenda, as yet, it
had not been agreed how the permissive access sites would be publicised.
A query was
raised around the basic payment scheme, and what was intended to replace the
scheme as it was being phased out. The
scheme had been accessible to the majority of landowners to help them manage
their land and included incentives to aid in keeping PROW open for users. The scheme had been beneficial to the Council
in its day to day delivery of keeping PROW’s open and clear of obstruction and
encouraged landowners allow access. Mr
Mackintosh stated that there was no replacement at the moment.
The
Chair thanked Mr Mackintosh for attending the meeting and it was
Resolved
i)
That the update be noted.
ii)
That the Chair and Mark Cunliffe-Lister compose a
letter to Natural England on behalf of the LAF, regarding the lack of Sustainable Farming Initiative funding options for
access payments