Guidance

About the Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare grant round 1, who can apply and what the grant can pay for

Updated 28 May 2024

Applies to England

1. What the grant is for

You can apply for a Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare grant for either a:

• comprehensive project – to upgrade (refurbish) or replace (with new) existing buildings that currently house laying hens or pullets to deliver health and welfare benefits
• veranda-only project – to add a veranda to existing laying hen or pullet housing to deliver health and welfare benefits

For this grant, the term ‘laying hen’ refers to a female domestic chicken over 17 weeks old kept for table egg production. The term ‘pullet’ refers to a female domestic chicken less than 17 weeks old being reared for table egg production.

Grant funded laying hen and pullet housing must provide a high level of biosecurity, excellent ambient environment, and maximise the space available by ensuring full and safe accessibility to all birds.

Comprehensive projects for both pullets and laying hens should include mechanical ventilation and high welfare multi-tier systems. Any laying hen housing should include a veranda, where outside space is permitted.

Mechanical ventilation allows temperature and humidity to be effectively managed, particularly during periods of extreme heat.  

High welfare multi-tier systems (defined as aviaries for laying hens), improve the physical strength of the birds, zone active and inactive behaviours, and increase the birds’ potential to escape stressors and exert choice.

Verandas provide additional space, with access to natural light and fresh air, when outdoor access is otherwise absent.

Matching the complexity of the environment in which pullets are reared to that of laying hens provides several welfare benefits by allowing young birds to quickly adapt following transfer. 

A successful project will:

• improve laying hen and pullet health and welfare
• increase environmental sustainability
• introduce innovation

If your project meets all these priorities, it’s more likely to be accepted.

We expect the online checker to open at the end of June 2024.   

We will start to invite eligible applicants to make a full application from October 2024.

The grant is being delivered by Rural Payments Agency (RPA) on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

This grant is part of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway and helps to deliver the agreed health and welfare priorities for the laying hen sector.

For further information, read the summary of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway.

2. Who can apply

You can apply for a grant if you’re an existing commercial egg producer or pullet rearer. You must be a registered keeper of 1000 or more birds. These must be on site when you fill in the online checker or have been within the last 6 months. Any buildings you build or upgrade with money from the grant must be located in England.

You must either own the land you’re building on or have a tenancy agreement for the land until 5 years after the project is complete. You can apply if your current agreement will end sooner than 5 years after the project, if you expect it to continue. If you are a tenant, it is your responsibility to get any necessary permissions from your landlord.  

If your tenancy agreement is unlikely to continue for 5 years after the project is complete, you can ask your landlord to underwrite your agreement. This means that if your tenancy ends, your landlord agrees to take over the project. For example, by completing the conditions themselves or passing the agreement onto a new tenant. This approach is optional and RPA will only ask for confirmation of this when you make a full application.

Any monies from the Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare grant must not be used to cross-subsidise any related, linked, parent, subsidiary, partnership, joint venture businesses or operations based in Northern Ireland. Funds from this grant must be used solely for the purposes of England business operations only.

3. Who cannot apply

The following groups are not eligible for a grant:    

• existing farm businesses with fewer than 1000 birds
• public organisations, including Crown bodies and non-departmental public bodies
• local authorities

4. How the application process works

You’ll need to follow a 2-stage application process. Applicants are only permitted to apply for one project type: ‘comprehensive’ or ‘veranda-only’.

You can make applications for multiple projects up to the maximum grant amount.

If you want to apply for funding for more than one building, you will need to make a separate application for each.   

Read the how to apply for comprehensive projects guidance or the how to apply for veranda-only projects guidance for full information on how to apply.

4.1 Comprehensive applications

The grant for comprehensive projects is competitive, so your application will be scored against the funding priorities.

If your application is eligible and scores highly enough at the full application stage, we will offer you a Grant Funding Agreement (GFA).     

4.2 Veranda-only applications

The grant for veranda-only projects is on a first-come first-serve basis.

If your application is eligible, is made before the available funding is allocated and you make a full application, we will offer you a GFA.

4.3 Planning permission and environmental permits

You are likely to need planning permission for your grant funded project. You may also need an environmental permit variation if your site has more than 40,000 birds.

You will need a new environmental permit if the bird capacity of the site will increase from under 40,000 birds to 40,000 or more birds because of the project.

To get advice on your environmental permit, you can use the Environment Agency’s pre-application advice service to make sure your permit application is correct.

You must consider what permissions and permits you will need for your project. We recommend you apply for these at the same time and make it clear on the applications that the project is part of the Defra Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare grant.

You will need to have the necessary permissions and permits in place before making a full application.

5. How much money you can apply for

Grants can cover up to a maximum rate of 40% of the eligible costs of a project.

You need to be able to pay the remaining project costs. You can use loans, overdrafts, and certain other monies, such as money received through delinked payments or agri-environment schemes such as the Countryside Stewardship scheme.  

You cannot use other public money, such as grant funding from local authorities, towards the project costs. You also cannot use this grant to carry out capital works which you need to do as part of other agreements.

5.1 Comprehensive projects

The minimum grant you can apply for is £15,000 (40% of £37,500). The maximum grant is £500,000 per applicant business. The minimum grant amount does not include costs associated with rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.

If you’re including rooftop solar PV systems as part of your project, we will only fund the cost and installation of these based on a power requirement of 5 kilowatts per 1,000 birds within the housing, up to 25% of the eligible costs.  

Installing a solar PV system on your funded building will contribute to the grant funding priority of enhancing environmental sustainability.

You do not need to include a rooftop solar PV system on your funded building.

5.2 Veranda-only projects

The minimum grant you can apply for is £5,000 (40% of £12,500). The maximum grant is £100,000 per applicant business.

Veranda-only projects are not eligible for funding towards rooftop solar PV systems.

6. When you can claim payment

You can claim for payment after the work being claimed for is finished and has been paid for. You can make a maximum of 3 claims over the course of the project.

You must not start work, commit to any costs (including paying deposits), enter into any legal contracts, or place an order until your project start date. This date will be in your GFA.

If you incur project costs before that date, you may make your application ineligible, as the project could be considered as already started.

If you buy an item for the project using lease purchase or hire purchase, you need to own it outright before you can claim any grant money towards it. If you do not own it outright, you will not be able to include these costs in your claim.

This means that you need to pay all the instalments and show that the title has passed to you before you claim the grant.

7. Evaluation and learning

The Laying Hen Housing for Health and Welfare grant will gather information on projects receiving public investment. To help us improve national data and future funding rounds, we will ask successful applicants to take part in evaluation and learning activities.

We may also ask unsuccessful applicants about their experience with the application process, to improve future grant rounds.

This information is one of the public goods that the grant is paying for as part of wider government measures for animal health and welfare. We will not use the information you give us to assess project compliance. 

We will explain how you can provide this information in your GFA.