The Environmentally Sensitive Areas (Somerset Levels and Moors) Designation Order 1997

Articles 4(2) and 5(2)(b)

SCHEDULE 3 ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS TO WHICH PAYMENTS REFERRED TO IN SCHEDULE 10, PART II, ITEM 2 RELATE

As regards any land which is subject to the agreement, requirements to the effect that–

(a) the farmer shall not use a chain harrow or roller between 31st March and 1st July in any given year;

(b) the farmer shall not increase existing application rates of inorganic fertiliser and shall not in any event apply more than 25 kilogrammes of nitrogen, 12.5 kilogrammes of phosphate or 12.5 kilogrammes of potash per hectare per year;

(c) where land has not been used solely for grazing, the farmer shall mow at least one third of the area of land each year (or shall mow the whole of the area during one year in every three years) but shall not do so before 1st July in any given year and shall not graze the land before laying it up;

(d) the farmer shall not cut or top the grass after 31st August in any given year;

(e) the farmer shall not graze sheep between 1st September in any given year and the following 1st March;

(f) the farmer shall not use herbicides to control creeping buttercup;

(g) the farmer shall ensure that water levels in ditches and rhynes are maintained at or above the established penning level, to be fixed by reference to gauge boards set to Ordnance Datum Newlyn, or at not lower than 45 centimetres below mean field level, whichever is the higher, from 1st April until 31st October in any given year, and shall maintain water levels at or above the established winter level, fixed by reference to gauge boards set to Ordnance Datum Newlyn, from 1st November in any given year until 31st March in the following year, and shall maintain a minimum level of 30 centimetres of water in the bottom of ditches and rhynes at all times.