Guidance

Countryside Stewardship statement of priorities: Greater Thames Estuary (NCA081)

Updated 11 May 2021

Applies to England

Choosing priorities

Countryside Stewardship is a competitive scheme and funding is limited. Not all eligible applicants will be offered a grant. This guide will help applicants choose the options that will increase their chance of success.

Countryside Stewardship applications are scored. Both top priorities and other priorities score points. Applicants should select at least one top priority. Choosing other priorities will improve an application’s score.

Biodiversity: top priorities

Priority habitats

Applicants should choose land management options and capital works that maintain, restore and create priority habitats and support priority species that depend on these habitats.

Priority habitats to be maintained include:

• coastal and floodplain grazing marsh
• coastal saltmarsh
• saline lagoons
• vegetated shingle
• maritime cliff and slope
• reedbeds
• ancient and native woodland
• arable field margins

Priority habitats (especially projects to enlarge existing sites or help join up habitat networks) to be restored include:

• coastal and flood plain grazing marsh
• coastal saltmarsh
• reedbeds
• saline lagoons
• vegetated shingle
• ancient and native woodland

Priority habitat creation to extend or link priority habitat to increase connectivity and reduce fragmentation. In particular, create priority habitat that will also contribute significantly to improvements in:

• water quality
• air quality
• flood and coastal risk management

Sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs)

Restore or maintain SSSIs that include features eligible for options – this includes options that will reduce diffuse water and air pollution effects.

Priority species

Managing priority habitats will create the habitat needs for many of the priority species associated with this area. In particular, by providing such essential elements as bare ground, areas of scrub and varied sward structures, which will help these species thrive.

This area also has a number of priority species that need tailored management and advice. Applicants should choose land management options and capital works that meet the specific needs of the following priority species:

• black tailed godwit
• corn bunting
• lapwing
• turtle dove
• shrill carder bee
• heath fritillary
• fisher’s estuarine moth
• lunar yellow underwing
• fiery clearwing
• streaked bombardier beetle
• distinguished Jumper
• deptford pink
• spreading hedge parsley
• noble chafer

Breeding wader assemblage

Parts of this area are targeted for their variety of breeding waders. Natural England has assessed the area as being nationally significant where one or more of the following species occur:

• lapwing
• redshank
• curlew
• snipe

In these areas, applicants should choose land management options and capital works that maintain or enhance conditions for breeding waders.

Wild pollinator and farm wildlife package

This package is a collection of scheme options that benefit wild pollinators, farmland birds (such as grey partridge, tree sparrow and yellowhammer) and other farm wildlife (such as arable plants, great crested newt, bats and brown hare).

The package is voluntary, but an application will have a greater chance of success if options from the package are chosen.

The options provide the essential resources (especially year-round food, shelter and nesting places) that wild pollinators, birds and farm wildlife need to survive and reproduce. These include:

• sowing nectar flower mixes
• increasing flowers on grassland
• sowing winter bird food mixes
• managing hedgerows and other key farm habitats (like ponds and ditches)

Mid Tier

Applicants can choose from groups of options for different farm types – arable, mixed or pastoral. Typically, the options should be applied over a minimum of 3% to 5% of the farmed land on the holding.

Higher Tier

An application will have a greater chance of success if the holding has already helped wildlife thrive under previous schemes. For example, where a Higher Level Stewardship agreement is coming to an end, and from other areas where priority farmland species are present.

Applicants can choose from similar groups of options, tailored to their holding, in consultation with a Natural England adviser. Typically, the options will cover a minimum of 5% to 10% of farmed land to target a broader range of farmland species and habitats.

Applying the right combination of these options over at least 3% of the farmed land or a holding will bring benefits to farm wildlife.

Water: top priorities

Water quality

Applicants should consider options and capital works in the water quality options table that address phosphate, sediment, nitrate and pesticides in the Roding, Beam and Ingrebourne catchments and sediment in the Tidal Thames catchment.

These options help improve water quality by controlling the source or the movement of potential pollutants, including:

• nutrients from fertilisers, manures and organic materials
• sediment from soil erosion and runoff
• pesticides from their use and disposal

Flood and coastal risk management

An application will have a greater chance of success if applicants select options for flood and coastal risk issues in the priority areas of the:

• Medway and Swale Estuary from Allington to Sheerness and Warden Bay
• Erith, Crayford and Dartford Marshes
• Northfleet and Shorne Marshes
• Little Oakley (Hamford Water Estuary)
• Kirby-le-soken (Hamford Water Estuary)
• St Lawrence Bay (South bank Blackwater)
• Wallasea wetland scheme (Roach and Crouch Estuary)
• Rewsall East Mersea
• Arlesford lodge – (East bank Colne)
• Flag Creek (Colne)
• Tilbury Marshes and West Tilbury Marshes
• Shorne Marshes West
• Cooling Marshes
• High Halstow Marshes

Applicants should choose options from the flood risk table that:

• reduce the amount and rate of surface water runoff
• reduce soil erosion
• slow the movement of floodwaters on floodplains
• manage the coastline by managed realignment in appropriate locations

Historic environment: top priorities

Applicants should choose active management which ensures the long-term survival of historic environment features and protects them against damage and decay. In particular, some of the biggest land management threats in this area are from:

• lack of management
• scrub and tree growth

The following features are a high priority for active management in this area:

• designated features – archaeological features of national significance (scheduled monuments), registered parks and gardens and registered battlefields
• designated and undesignated traditional farm buildings and non-domestic historic buildings on holdings
• undesignated historic and archaeological features of high significance which are part of the Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England (SHINE)

Applicants should consider options and capital works to:

• revert archaeological sites under cultivation to permanent grass
• reduce damaging cultivation and harvesting practices through minimum tillage or direct drilling where this provides a suitable level of protection
• remove scrub and bracken from archaeological or historic features
• maintain below-ground archaeology under permanent uncultivated vegetation or actively manage earthworks, standing stones and structures as visible above-ground features
• maintain and restore historic water management systems, including those associated with water meadows and designed water bodies
• restore historic buildings that are assessed as a priority in the area
• maintain or restore registered parks and gardens, including structures or features that contribute to the original design intentions or feel of the parkland or provide for their biodiversity and amenity value
• protect or enhance the condition of registered battlefields

Landscape

Each application is likely to include a range of landscape features whose restoration should form an important part of agreements. Top priority in the area is the maintenance and restoration of features that will enhance the pattern and scale of the landscape and add to the area’s ‘sense of place’.

Top priorities in this area for landscape are:

• permanent grassland
• field margins and buffers
• winter stubbles

Multiple environmental benefits

Applicants should look to provide for multiple priorities by selecting options that achieve multiple environmental benefits.

In this area, the greatest opportunity to achieve multiple objectives is by:

• creating and maintaining intertidal coastal habitat and grazing marsh in the Medway Estuary, the Swale, Erith, Crayford and Dartford Marshes, Northfleet and Crayford Marshes and the open coast at the North Sea to support flood and coastal risk management and benefit biodiversity
• establishing new wetland habitats, focused in the catchments and flood risk areas listed in the water quality and flood and coastal risk management sections, in locations where they will improve water quality, reduce runoff rates into watercourses, benefit biodiversity, protect historic features and strengthen landscape character
• selecting options such as swales, sediment traps, riparian management strips, buffer strips and erosion control to improve both water quality and support flood risk management. These should be focused in the priority water quality catchments and flood risk areas in the water quality and flood and coastal risk management section
• enhancing existing woodlands and expanding woodland cover in locations where well managed woodland can benefit landscape character, biodiversity, water quality and flood risk, in addition to wider climate change, economic and social benefits – key locations include the area between Southend and Clacton

Other priorities

Applicants should select at least one of the top priorities. However, applicants can also select other priorities, as this will increase the score of the application.

Water quality

Applicants should consider options and capital works in the water quality options table that address:

• phosphates in the Chelmer catchment, Colne Essex catchment, Crouch and Roach catchment, Essex TraC catchment, Mardyke catchment and Tidal Thames catchment
• phosphates and nitrates in the North Kent catchment (the White Drain) and phosphates and pesticides in the Blackwater catchment
• phosphates in a number of coastal streams including Pickers Ditch, Tendring streams and Virley Brook
• phosphates, nitrates and sediment affecting Ingrebourne Marshes SSSI catchment

These options help improve water quality by controlling the source or the movement of potential pollutants.

Historic environment

The following historic environment features are lower priorities:

• designated and undesignated traditional farm buildings
• undesignated SHINE features of medium and low significance
• priority undesignated historic parklands

Woodland management

Woodlands not included in the top priority categories are a lower priority for management but may still be supported.

Woodland planting

Areas are prioritised for new planting based on their potential to create biodiversity and water benefits.

Woodland planting schemes are scored depending on where the proposed scheme is in relation to the opportunity maps for woodland planting in England and how well the planting design will benefit biodiversity and water.

Other priorities for appropriately designed biodiversity schemes exist across the whole of England. Opportunities for new woodland planting for water only exist in certain parts of England.

Climate change

By choosing land management options and capital works which support the management of the vulnerable features and habitats listed in this statement, including where vulnerabilities are increased by climate change, applicants will support the resilience of biodiversity, water and other scheme priorities to the impacts of climate change, which is a cross-cutting objective of the scheme.