Great News for Woodland Creation Applicants 

An update and content taken from the Forestry Commission Grants & Regulation News:

You can now apply for Countryside Stewardship (CS) woodland creation capital grant year-round in our new rolling window which opens for applications from Monday 10th September 2018.

We have been listening to customers’ requests and are pleased to announce these changes which will remove the restriction on when you can apply for your woodland creation capital grant. We are keen to make improvements to the scheme where we can and hope that the removal of the 6-week application window and the flexibility it provides will help land managers when making their applications.

So what is changing?

Actually, not much. You can from Monday 10th September apply for your CS woodland creation grant year round, there is no longer an application window, so you can apply when it suits you best.

We have updated the woodland creation manual. The main change that we have made, is to scoring. Initial applications will still need to score 12 points to be accepted, but rather than setting a score final applications must meet to be offered an agreement in a single round each year, we will do this each month. This approach allows us to open the grant to applications at any time of year and continually process applications.

To maximise the period of the planting seasons and provide time to order planting stock within your agreement period, you can now ask to defer the start date of your woodland creation grant agreement by up to 6 months after the final application is submitted."

Find our more information on the website: https://www.forestry.gov.uk/england-grants