A.1.3 Informing services#
Managing monuments in the landscape#
HERs in England have been a source of information for the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, a grant scheme which was first piloted in 1991. It aims included the conservation of archaeological sites and historic features, by adapting land management practices. The Countryside Stewardship Scheme was replaced by Environmental Stewardship in 2004, comprising two tiers – Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) and Higher Level Stewardship (HLS). HERs supplied information on the archaeology of the area, together with recommendations as to the optimum method of land management for all the Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) schemes. English Heritage was able to help many local authorities employ Historic Environment Countryside Advisers to fulfil this role.
As part of their work for Environmental Stewardship, participating HERs, alongside the NMR, supplied data for Natural England’s Selected National Heritage Dataset (SNHD, 2005) to pre-populate applicant's maps for the scheme. In 2009 SNHD was replaced by SHINE - the Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England (2009 - ongoing) a single nationally consistent dataset created by HERs, of undesignated historic environment features from across England that could benefit from management within agri-environment schemes. SHINE was used to inform Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) schemes, enabling farmers and landowners to identify archaeological and historic sites on their holding that might be eligible for grant-aided management, and as part of the Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) fast track applications, to flag up potential manageable features to Natural England Advisors in order to focus advice on parcels where HLS options could benefit the historic environment. Environmental Stewardship was closed to new applicants in 2014, although existing agreements will still be managed until they reach their agreed end date
The new Countryside Stewardship will replace Environmental Stewardship in summer 2015, comprising Higher Tier (similar to HLS) and Mid Tier (similar to ELS). Countryside Stewardship is more targeted than previous schemes with a focus on biodiversity and water quality, but continues to encourage the protection and enhancement of the historic environment. Targeting statements, informed by SHINE, are being used to identify the priority features and issues for the Historic Environment within each National Character Area (NCA).
A.6.3 National networks and resources#
Natural England manage SHINE - the Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England, a single, nationally consistent dataset of undesignated historic environment features from across England that could benefit from management within agri-environment schemes administered by Natural England on behalf of Defra. The data has been created by local authority Historic Environment Records (HERs) and has been fed into a national SHINE dataset, which now consists of over 60,000 records. Local Authority HERs continue to ‘convert’ their HER records to SHINE format, based on defined set of selection criteria. SHINE is not publicly available; however, it can be accessed via www.myshinedata.org.uk
by farmers, land managers, land owners and tenants entering into agri-environment schemes.