Sustainable Management of Forests – Public Access

Sustainable Management of Forests – Public Access - (RP22501C)

The aim of this Option

To provide support for environmental management in areas where there is a high level of public access and recreational use.

Rates of Support

These are Annually Recurrent Grants, the rates of which are shown on the Sustainable Management of Forests page

Eligibility criteria

You must own or lease the land
If you are a tenant or contractual licensee, you must discuss the proposed application with your landlord to make sure it does not break the conditions of your tenancy or licence, and submit a Landlord Notification Form with your Proposal.
If you have a tenancy or a licence with less than five years to run you must complete a Landlord Declaration form and ask your Landlord or the landowner to sign the declaration on that form.
You must have an approved Forest Plan for woodland areas over 100 hectares. For woodland areas less than 100 hectares a Management Plan is required at the time of your application.
The woodland must be at least 1 hectare in size.
The net costs of the work, i.e. your total costs minus any income, must exceed the grant payment.
For woodlands that are to be managed under an existing Forest Plan, or a management plan, we will only approve operations for the number of years remaining in the Plan
All your proposed management work must comply with the UK Forestry Standard

Details you need to provide with your Proposal

Before your Proposal reaches the "Proposal Commit" stage you must provide:

Management Plan
For woodland areas less than 100 hectares a Management Plan or a completed Management Plan template
Forestry Outcome Plan
The Forestry Outcome Plan will ask for certain information so that we can assess your proposal. This will include:
Evidence that proves the area has a high level of public access, e.g. information on visitor numbers, community use, information about regular events that take place
A summary of the work you propose in the plan period to create/improve the path network, access etc
A map
A map that shows the areas where there is a high level of access or recreational use and an indication of the areas in which management work will take place during the plan period. To ensure you mark your map correctly, please use the Mapping Guidance
For each year in which you intend to carry out work, you must provide an indicative budget which includes a breakdown of the management work along with the estimated costs. We will expect you to use competitive rates in your indicative budget.

Claims and Inspections

The grant for Public Access is an Annual Recurrent grant and can be paid for up to 10 years. You must complete the Single Application Form (SAF) to claim this funding.

Please note that you should keep evidence of actual costs/expenditure of the work you carry out each year so that we may inspect and verify that the costs exceeded the grant that you were paid.