What do the hedgerow regulations mean for future hedge management?

Hedgerows are a defining feature of the countryside and bustling with life – from the hedgehogs that call them home to the bees butterflies and other wildlife they sustain. They also play an important role in farming, ensuring soils remain healthy and reducing the impacts of flooding or drought. And there is growing evidence that hedgerows are making a real contribution towards meeting the UK’s net zero target. On 23 May 2024, The Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024 came into force. This provides a consistent approach to their protection across the country. What does this new legislation mean for the management of hedgerows; and how are farmers, growers and land managers already helping? Jessica Sellick investigates. ………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Hedgerows come in many shapes and sizes. According to the Woodland Trust, a hedgerow ‘includes both the hedge and features such as banks, trees, walls, fences and gates. It may be ancient or newly planted, with a single species or many, and everything in between.’ Hedgerows fall into two principle categories: ‘managed’ so that trees no longer take their natural shape; and ‘relict’ where trees were planted as hedges but are no longer managed. There are approximately 390,000 km of hedgerows (1-6 metres tall) on field boundaries in England – enough to go round the world almost 10 times! Mapping from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) shows the south-west has the highest hedgerow density, led by Cornwall with an average of 5.1 km per 1km x 1km square. 

The first hedgerows can be traced back to the Bronze Age when farmers cleared woodland to make fields and used strips of woodland to mark the boundaries. The planting of new hedgerows started around Roman times and continued up until the 18^th century. From the 1750s enclosure by parliamentary act became the norm. Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 enclosure bills were enacted by parliament, dividing the countryside (equating to one-fifth of the total land area of England, amounting to some 6.8 million acres). After the Second World War, Government policy encouraged hedge removal as part of a drive to ensure Britain was self-sufficient in food. Financial incentives were made available to farmers to remove hedgerows. Larger farm machinery and equipment was also developed that was difficult to manoeuvre around small fields. Because of this, the loss of hedgerows has been identified as a key factor in the decline of plant and animal species on farmland. 

An Institute of Terrestrial Ecology [now CEH] survey of hedgerow changes revealed that between 1984 and 1990 hedgerow length in England declined by 20% and in Wales by 25%. While outright removal of hedgerows accounted for 9,500km per year, almost half of the loss was as a result of lack of management. 

Between 1990 and 1993, the removal of hedgerows lessened to about 3,600km per year, and the rate of planting, at 4,400km per year, exceeded the rate of removal. This new planting was largely a result of the Government introducing hedgerow incentive schemes to encourage farmers to restore and manage hedgerows and other boundary features. Indeed, the loss of ‘managed’ hedgerows appears to have been halted since the mid-1990s. Yet across the country many hedgerows remain in poor condition and require active management if they are to survive and thrive – will the latest Hedgerow Regulations help? 

How have hedgerows been legally protected – and what do the new regulations mean? Under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, certain hedgerows were protected from removal if they met certain characteristics. The regulations protected hedgerows that were over 30-years-old and over 20 metres long (or, if shorter than 20 metres, met another hedge at each end) and which had any feature deemed ‘important’ (e.g. historic and archaeological features, wildlife, and landscape features). Such hedgerows could not be removed with planning consent and to do so was a criminal offence. 

Between June and September 2023, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) consulted on extending these regulations to ‘protect the structure of hedgerows and prevent cutting during the bird-rearing season’. The consultation contained two legislative options:  

1. Amending the Hedgerows Regulations 1997. This could be followed by a second stage of ‘broader protections once we have a suitable legislative route.’ This option only applied to agricultural land and followed the age and length criteria of existing legislation. It also contained an updated definition of ‘important hedgerow.’ 
2. New legal protections for hedgerows which would ‘help achieve environmental and net zero outcomes and allow us to consider protecting a broader range of hedgerows, beyond just those on agricultural land.’ This would require primary legislation. 

8,841 consultation responses were received. Generally, those replying from an environmental perspective encouraged Defra to take the opportunity to strengthen the protections on hedgerows and go further than previous measures. Those that responded on behalf of the farming sector asked Defra to balance the need to protect the environment with farm productivity and simplicity. 

In response to the consultation, Government decided to bring forward new legislation to protect hedgerows. This included replicating the requirements that farmers are already familiar with, but with a simpler, fairer, and more proportionate approach to enforcement. 

The Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024 were passed by parliament in May 2024 and put baseline hedgerow management practices into law, providing a consistent approach across all agricultural land. This includes: 

• A 2-metre buffer strip, measured from the centre of a hedgerow, where a green cover must be established and maintained. Also, no cultivation or the application of pesticides or fertilisers should take place within this buffer strip. 
• A hedgerow cutting ban from 1 March to 31 August (inclusive). 

These practices are subject to exemptions and derogations set out in the legislation. 

The new Regulations broadly mirror the previous approach, making it relatively straightforward for farmers and others already familiar with the requirements. 

How can farmers, growers and land managers get involved in protecting hedgerows? Under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) and Countryside Stewardship Scheme farmers who claimed payments between 2005 and 2023 had to follow what were known as ‘cross compliance’ rules. For hedgerows, this meant land managers had ‘to take all reasonable steps to keep a green cover on land within 2 metres of a hedge’ and were prohibited from cultivating or applying fertilisers or pesticides to land within 2 metres of the centre of a hedge. Hedges could also not be cut or trimmed between 1 March and 31 August to protect nesting birds. 

When the UK exited the European Union (EU), Defra began an agricultural transition period. Taking place between 2021 and 2027, BPS payments are being phased out in England and new schemes to reward farmers for delivering public goods are being rolled out under the ‘Environmental Land Management’ (ELM) schemes. 

Back in April 2023, Defra described how it wanted ‘to increase the length of hedgerows and make the most of the benefits existing hedgerows offer to wildlife, water quality and carbon sequestration’.  ELM has several strands under which farmers can apply for funding. Those strands relating to hedgerows include: 

• Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI): this includes a hedgerow standard. Farmers can apply for funding to undertake activities to improve hedgerows and hedgerow trees. These cover activities to: assess and record hedgerow condition [HRW1]; manage hedgerows [HRW2]; and maintain or establish hedgerow trees [HRW3]. Farmers currently receive £5, £13 and £10 per hectare per year for HRW1, 2 and 3 respectively. 
• Countryside Stewardship plus – the follow-on from Countryside Stewardship: this continues previous payments for the management of hedgerows by rotational cutting and for leaving some hedgerows uncut, as well as capital grants to plant and restore hedgerows. The ‘plus’ scheme, however, also includes payments for new actions such as annual incremental cutting, leaving hedgerows uncut for longer, assessing and recording hedgerow condition, and maintaining existing hedgerow trees or establishing new ones. 
• The Tree Health Pilot (THP) running between 2021 and 2024 is testing different ways of slowing the spread of pests and diseases affecting trees in England. The pilot is running in the south east, north west and west midlands. It includes funding to restock hedgerows with new trees that are more resilient to future threats, as well as capital items and yearly maintenance payments to support new trees to establish. 

Defra has indicated that many farmers and growers already go much further than the rules contained in the new regulations. Indeed, Defra estimates that over 20,000 ELM scheme agreements are contributing to the management of over 60,000 miles of  hedgerows in England. 

Where next? While the new regulations have been broadly welcomed, stakeholders have indicated some gaps and shortcomings. The RSPB, for example, highlights how fields under two hectares and hedgerows under five years are not required to have a protective buffer strip, despite over 70% of consultation respondents saying no to this exemption, including over 50% of farmers who responded. The RSPB argues this leaves significant lengths of hedgerows unprotected, despite evidence that hedgerows in small fields provide high-quality habitat and connectivity for wildlife. 

Respondents to the consultation identified the need to be fair and not overly burdensome towards farmers, and for Defra to be consistent in how it enforces and resources regulation. Under the new regulations The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is responsible for enforcing the regulations. The RPA intends to hold a public consultation on how to implement and enforce these protections. 

The regulations predominantly apply to hedges on farmland, and we know farmers and growers are already committed to protecting them. Yet hedges in other areas such as parks and gardens are not an integral part of the regulations despite these public and domestic spaces being shop windows for the wider environment. One ecologist, who monitored a hedgerow near his home in Devon, counted 2,070 species visiting or living there. Hedgelink aims to encourage everyone to take action to manage, protect and conserve hedgerows – including in rural areas, gardens and allotments, and towns and city spaces. Hedgelink also collates information about hedgerow surveys and the information they provide about the diversity and state of our hedges and what needs to be done to restore them. In terms of next steps, how can planting hedges be seen as a worthwhile investment in rural areas beyond agricultural landscapes? 

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Jessica is a project manager at Rose Regeneration and a senior research fellow at The National Centre for Rural Health and Care (NCRHC). She is currently evaluating a service that supports older people to maintain their independence; and reviewing neighbourhood-based initiatives (NBI). Jessica also sits on the board of a charity supporting  rural communities across Cambridgeshire and is a member of her local Patient Participation Group. 

She can be contacted by email jessica.sellick@roseregeneration.co.uk. 

Website: http://roseregeneration.co.uk/https://www.ncrhc.org/ 

Blog: http://ruralwords.co.uk/ 

Twitter: @RoseRegen 

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