The Common Agricultural Policy (Cross-Compliance) (Scotland) Regulations 2014

Retention of landscape features

7.—(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (3), a beneficiary must not remove or destroy drystane or flagstone dykes, turf and stone-faced banks, walls, hedges (or part of a hedge) and trees (whether in line, in a group or isolated), ponds or watercourses without the prior written consent of—

(a) the Scottish Ministers; or

(b) such other authority, by or under any enactment, as may be notified to the beneficiary by the Scottish Ministers when the beneficiary applies to the Scottish Ministers for consent.

(2) A beneficiary must not trim a hedge or cut a tree during the period beginning on 1st March and ending on 31st August in any calendar year, except—

(a) for the purposes of hedgelaying up to and including 31st March; or

(b) to the extent necessary for the purposes of road safety.

(3) Written consent under sub-paragraph (1) is not required to widen field entrances to enable access for livestock or farm machinery.

(4) A beneficiary must not alter, or cause (whether directly or indirectly) the damage or destruction of a monument for the time being included in the Schedule of monuments compiled and maintained under section 1 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979(1) without prior scheduled monument consent within the meaning of that Act.

(5) Except where sub-paragraph (6) applies, the cultivation of land or the direct application of organic manure, chemical or nitrogen fertilisers or pesticides must not take place within 2 metres of the centre line of a hedge.

(6) This paragraph applies where pesticides are applied to land to control injurious weeds to which the Weeds Act 1959 applies.

(7) In this paragraph—

(a) “hedge” means any hedge growing in, or adjacent to, any land which forms part of a holding, which has—

(i) a length of at least 20 metres; or

(ii) a length of less than 20 metres where it meets (at an intersection or junction) another hedge at each end,

and any gap of less than 20 metres is to be treated as part of the hedge; and

(b) “remove or destroy” does not include—

(i) trimming a hedge; or

(ii) lopping branches from trees; and

(c) “hedgelaying” means a traditional method of cultivating hedges where tall saplings are partly cut through near the base and then bent over so that they lie horizontally and make a thick barrier.

(1)

1979 c.46, as amended by Schedule 4 to the National Heritage Act 1983 (c.47).