Water company takes ESAcash
Water company takes ESAcash
NORTH West Water has decided to take a 50% slice of its tenants environmentally sensitive area payments, raising fears among farmers and the NFU that the credibility of the scheme will be undermined.
The water company, which made profits of £312.5m last year, has about 80 tenant farmers across the north west. The decision will affect new tenants in the Lake District ESA.
But Peter Allen chairman of the NFUs less favoured areas committee, himself a tenant in an ESA, explained that the scheme was designed to compensate farmers for profits foregone and for the extra management costs of farming in an environmentally sensitive way.
"For a landlord to take an arbitrary proportion of a farm support payment, without any reference to the profitability of the farm, is wrong. It is completely against the spirit of the ESA scheme for landlords to say they want a set percentage of the payment."
He added that the public might conclude that money intended to compensate producers for farming environmentally could be boosting profits of a large water company.
Land belonging to the water companies in the Lakes was originally bought from farmers by the government under compulsory purchase order to protect the nations water supply, Mr Allen added.
"If the water companies feel they have a right to environmental payments, then I think farmers have a right to payment on the water courses which cross their land. Other utility companies pay wayleaves to farmers. It would be reasonable for the privatised water company to pay us," he said.
But a spokesman for North West Water said it intended to carry out some of the bracken spraying and heather burning needed, so a 50% cut of the ESA money was reasonable.
However, Veronica Waller, NFU policy adviser for the north-west, said: "North West Water may well be doing this work, but the tasks will vary from year to year and taking half of the payments every year is too arbitrary."
"My concern is that the scheme, which is in line with the publics wish for farming, will be much less attractive to farmers if payments are effectively halved."
She added that an NFU survey last year showed 47% of tenants felt they were not getting the full benefit of the ESA payment because of rent increases which appeared to take the payments into account.