The Government's Agricultural Transition Plan manages a whole range of incentives and measures including the Environment Land Management System (ELMS) which is emerging in a phased way as the Basic Farm Payments (BPS) is due to be reduced out incrementally by 2028.
The base principle is to stop paying people for owning land but reward the provision of public goods or services provided by owners such as water quality, clean air, carbon storage etc as detailed in the 25 Year Environment Plan.
This shift to payments for public goods is proving very hard for the Government to implement, it is working for planting incentives but seems unlikely to be introduced for woodland management for some time.
Neville sits on several DEFRA and Forestry Commission working groups that make recommendations to ELMS and the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO) and leads the Institute of Chartered Foresters group that comments on this.
Neville is a board member for the newly launched Farming in Protected Landscapes Fund which has been established to help farmers in the Lake District transition to a new future. He also sits on the Environment Agency’s Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, chairing the Finance and Assurance Committee which oversees the flood protection budget for NW England.