Countryside Management Service

We have a number of leafleted walks that are aimed at beginners or those walking specifically to improve their health. Find one in your area and give it a go.

The Countryside Management Service (CMS) has been working with communities in Hertfordshire for 30 years, helping them to care for and enjoy the environment.

Farm Stewardship Success in Hertfordshire

Real progress is being made in Hertfordshire under the new national Environmental Stewardship Scheme (ES).

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced that almost 100 farmers and landowners in the County now have either conditional agreements or agreements already in place. This represents more than 17,000 extra hectares of Hertfordshire countryside now being managed in an environmentally friendly way, and £2.5M of payments over the next 5 years.

Following the launch of the scheme in March 2005, the Countryside Management Service, supported by the Biological Records Centre, Landscape and Historic Environment Units have worked on ES with 23 farmers/landowners. By March this will have secured entry of at least 2900 hectares of farmed land into the scheme, 630 hectares of this on HCC tenanted land.

The basic scheme, into which Defra believes 80% of farmland will be entered in the coming 5 years, provides 50 options from which farmers may choose. These options will lead to:

• hedgerows being cut in alternate years and allowed to grow taller
• grass margins adjacent to woodlands, water courses and hedgerows.
• the retention of in-field trees.
• archaeological features being taken out of cultivation.
• the retention and protection of field ponds.
• creation of field corner wildlife plots
• beetle banks dividing fields
• the establishment of 'Skylark Plots' within crops to encourage this species to nest and feed their young.

In the coming summer months CMS Officers will be promoting the uptake of the more complex Higher Level Scheme options and working with conservation minded farmers and landowners to ensure the available options best suite Hertfordshire’s wildlife, landscape, historic environment and people. HLS has additional options that enable farmers to restore and plant new hedgerows and create other countryside features such as ponds and pollards. Local Landowner Andrew Gibson has been working with CMS for several years. During this time he has taken advantage of several agri-environment schemes including Countryside Stewardship Scheme, Entry Level Scheme and Woodland Grant Scheme. “The expert advice that CMS can provide and draw upon has helped me make the most of the unproductive land on the farm. I receive payments for arable reversion to grazing land, grass margins around my arable fields, arable options for farmland birds and new woodland. This has enabled low yielding land to make a better contribution to the environment, wildlife and the farm business”. Andrew Gibson.