Natural England

Environmental Stewardship

The Environmental Stewardship scheme provides a great opportunity for land managers to enhance the landscape and provide new public footpaths and bridleways for everyone to enjoy.

We particularly welcome the scheme's promotion of public access to the English countryside, and the strong emphasis on maintaining and enhancing the character of our much-loved landscape. 

Environmental Stewardship builds on the legacy of previous agri-environment schemes. However with Entry Level Stewardship, for the first time all land managers can claim financial rewards for providing benefits for the countryside and the general public, making a real difference to our landscape.

Defra is moving towards joined-up delivery of access, landscape, historic environment, resource protection and biodiversity, and we encourage all land managers to join Environmental Stewardship.

We particularly welcome the fact that the concept of landscape character – what gives a locality its own sense of place - is much more firmly embedded in Environmental Stewardship than in previous schemes.

Access options are more comprehensive than previously and decisions on where to site new permissive routes will be based on an assessment of public need. We are keen to see the general public make use of these new access routes created by the scheme and get out into the countryside to see the benefits for themselves.

Natural England will work to ensure that Environmental Stewardship delivers maximum benefits for the environment and the public.

For further information contact: kaley.hart@naturalengland.org.uk.