GovWire

Guidance: Commons eligibility checks

Rural Payments Agency

September 26
11:40 2022

Details

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) regularly checks and updates its digital maps. This includes common land.

How commons eligibility checks differ from other land eligibility checks

Land eligibility on common land is checked using the latest enhanced satellite images and a limited number of supplementary physical land checks. These checks are different from our usual land eligibility checks. The main differences are:

  • we check the land cover and land use on commons and not land boundaries which we cannot change because they are legally defined

  • we survey the eligible area of a common separately to the enclosed land farmed by the common land graziers who declared rights on the common for BPS

  • graziers claim for a common by declaring their grazing rights rather than applying directly for an area of land. This means that there will be no penalties for over-declaring if we discover the eligible area has reduced. This is because the common area was calculated by us, using the rights the grazier declared and the land data on our systems. Therefore, the overclaim was not caused by incorrect information declared by the grazier.

When and where to check for changes

We need to make sure that all land data is up to date. Therefore, the eligibility checks are carried out regularly.

After a common is checked, if the eligible area has changed, we will write to you if you have declared rights on it as part of your BPS application. We and the Forestry Commission will also contact you if Stewardship and/or forestry schemes are affected. We will publish the new eligible area value on GOV.UK, the Commons eligibility checks updated areas at the top of this page.

The changes might affect the value of your claims and payments for:

  • BPS 2020

  • stewardship schemes

  • forestry schemes

This is because the notional area used to calculate your 2020 BPS payment may be less than last year. Therefore, your 2020 BPS payment may be lower than you are expecting. Read more information about how the notional area of the common is calculated on pages 27 and 28 of the

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