£5,000 environmental grant on offer for Midlands farmers

Farmers based in the Midlands region have been urged to make use of a £5,000 environmental grant to help protect watercourses from pollution.

The funding is provided by the Severn Trent Environmental Protection Scheme (Steps), which has already paid out £4m in grants for 936 projects over a four-year period.

Farmers who are in a Severn Trent (ST) priority catchment area can select an environmental project from a pre-defined list of funding options.

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The list includes a range of farm and field improvement works, including pesticide handling areas, watercourse fencing and cover crops. 

New, innovative proposals will also be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The scheme then match-funds up to £5,000 per application, with one claim allowed per year.

For larger projects, however, Steps will consider spreading the funding across two application years.

Flexible scheme

Jodie Rettino, Severn Trent’s catchment management and biodiversity lead, said she hoped the scheme would distribute more funding than ever this year.

“We believe working closely with farmers is key to protecting local watercourses, such as rivers and streams, and minimising pollution,” said Dr Rettino. 

She also emphasised the flexibility of the scheme.

“In the first year, you could use the funding to build a pesticide washdown area, and then in year two, you could install a roof.

“It’s all about offering farmers the opportunity to build on the good work they’re doing,” Dr Rettino said.

Farmer Simon Scott, Harnages Estates, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, has applied to the scheme every year since it began in 2014.

“We’ve installed a water catchment tank, built an enclosed sprayer washdown area, constructed a biofilter and landscaped a wetland to act as a natural filter for the farm drains that filter down into the River Severn,” Mr Scott said. 

“Steps is ideal for us because while we have the knowledge about what’s best for our farms water and environmental management, sometimes we don’t have the funding to make it happen.”