Trees, woodlands and forestry - Woodland Creation Planning Grant
Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs / Forestry Commission – Defra Trees Programme
Award
£1,500 – £30.5k
Total fund Up to £708.6k
Deadline
Closes 31 March 2030
Where
England
North East, North West, South East, South West
Summary
The Woodland Creation Planning Grant (WCPG) offers funding of up to £30,500 for the production of a UKFS-compliant woodland creation design plan. Landowners, land managers and public bodies can apply. WCPG is open for applications year-round. The ‘Find a grant’ tool requires a ‘closing date’ to be specified, however 31 March 2030 reflects the period WCPG funding is currently confirmed until, rather than a known closure date. The scheme was re-launched in autumn 2020 to enable more people to apply and help proposals move more quickly through the Environmental Impact Assessment process and future planting and establishment grant funding.
Who can apply
Landowners, land managers and public bodies (other than Forestry England) can apply to support the design of new woodland under the Woodland Creation Planning Grant (WCPG), provided the work is not already required under existing obligations. Crown bodies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) are not eligible for funding through WCPG.You must plan to create woodland that is: located in England a minimum of 5 hectares or more in total size: if the proposed woodland is split into different blocks, each block must meet the definition of woodland set out by the National Forest Inventory: a minimum area of 0.5 hectares and a minimum width of 20 metres If you intend to seek grant aid to plant the woodland, you should consider the minimum areas required to apply for grants for woodland creation when planning your proposal. Landscape-scale applications that span multiple land holdings may be accepted. You do not need to own or control the land, but you will need a letter confirming that the landowner(s) support the application. If your proposed site spans a border, we will only make a stage 2 payment of £150 per hectare on the land that is in England.You may include more than 20% of designed open space in your plan if the constraints of your site make this necessary, but the total stage 2 payment will be limited to the net planting area plus 20% (of the gross area). This means that any designed open space in your plan over and above 20% of the total project area will not receive funding. If you’ve already applied for Countryside Stewardship, the Woodland Carbon Fund , the HS2 Woodland Fund , or submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) enquiry form to plant a new woodland, you are not eligible to apply for Woodland Creation Planning Grant on that site. Read more about WCPG eligbility .
Full details
You can apply for £1,500 to complete Stage 1 of the WCPG application. This is for a desk-based exercise to identify the constraints and opportunities affecting the proposed planting. If there’s potential for woodland creation to take place on the site, then you will be offered a stage 2 payment. At stage 2, you can get £150 per hectare, minus the £1,500 offered at stage 1, to complete stage 2 of the Woodland Creation Design Plan Template. You may get supplementary payments for specialist survey work if a need for them is identified at stage 1. If your application is under ten hectares in size, we will make a minimum payment of £500 for stage 2. The total amount of funding is capped at £30,500 per project. The funding will support you to gather and analyse the information that you need to make sure your proposal takes into account: biodiversity landscape water historic environment local stakeholders (to support your engagement with stakeholders, please share this letter to request stakeholder input with them when you contact them for information to explain how their response will be used) You’ll have to develop a UK Forestry Standard -compliant plan for woodland creation that shows any constraints and opportunities, and how these are accounted for.If your land is already under an existing grant agreement, then your woodland creation design plan must cover the impact of tree planting on that agreement.