Am I alone in not being able to get an application pack and maps from the RDS? I phone every week and am told that computers or the printers are not working. By the earlier comments it would appear that many of you have received everything and it is correct. The only other person I know who has received anything discovered that half of his fields were missed off and he is still waiting for the correct maps after 3 weeks. Is this only a problem in the S.East?

Frank, I too am in the S east and cannot seem to get anywhere, presume I will get maps at some stage, so long as it does not affect payment why worry BW

The problem is that I have land under English Nature management agreement that is about to end. English Nature have said that this land will go into HLS as a priority. Unfortunately it is impossible to go into HLS without completing ELS. So with no maps or application pack it is impossible to proceed. The existing management agreement and potential HLS scheme is not insignificant and I was originally told that there would be a smooth transition. Some hope I fear.

I too am interested in hearing more about the trials and tribulations of applying for the ELS. It seems like the nightmare of SFP form-filling is being repeated! Is it as bad? What are the main issues? Regards, Isabel Davies Deputy news editor Farmers Weekly 020 8652 4931 isabel.davies@rbi.co.uk

I haven't got as far as problems of filling in the ELS form yet. Still waiting for IACCS 22's to be processed.

I got my IACS 22 back so they must be catching up there,(sent in November) but no sign of ELS maps and pack. On reflection it was not sensible for Defra to even try to do the SPS and ELS in such a short time scale. The amount of land that had to be registered for SPS was huge let alone all of the extra land which people put on IACS 22 such as woodland which had never been eligible for anything before.

11 thousand applications as of last week still in the pile.

I optimistically applied for ELS online scheme in March. Heard nothing so phoned last week. Online scheme 'will be unavailable this year'. (Surprise) They obviously know they have problems as we went through all parcel numbers and tried to add the 9 that were missing. Still waiting for forms to arrive. jdc