Apologies: Charles Raine,William Steele, Matt Stephenson, Pauline Blair, Jim Campbell

Minutes of the Committee Meeting of the Federation of Cumbria Commoners at 7.30pm on Tuesday 3rd December 2013, ThrelkeldCricket Club

Present: Dave Smith (Chairman), Carl Walters, ,Ian Gorst, ErnestCoulthard,Andrew Humphries,Julia Aglionby, Harry Hutchinson, Duncan Ellwood, John Rowland, andViv Lewis (Administrator)

Apologies: Charles Raine,William Steele, Matt Stephenson, Pauline Blair, Jim Campbell,

Previous Minutes: the minutes were agreed.

Matter arising: PIFS : Viv has written a letter (via e-mail) to Poul Christianson pointing out issues around PIFs, not response received yet. FOI request NE has asked for more time will produce the information by March 2014.
Finance report: Cash in bank £39,833.02. Still waiting for a few Commons Associations to pay their subs.

Action: Viv will chase.

Update from other committee members:

a)2 meetings of LDNP Farming & Forestry Task Force since our last committee meeting; topics CAP reform consultation update: updates on forestry and spread of tree diseases Ash dieback, Larch, Juniper.

b)Gillerthwaite: Forestry Commission are planning to rebuild the wall to keep sheep out.

c)Stennerskeugh Clouds: graziers have signed up to HLS including fencing off limestone pavement

CAP reform: Basic Payments, NELMS: Viv submitted a response, uploaded to website. Julia attended the NCLSG meeting 2nd Dec. Defra received 4,000 responses but most of these were members of organisations such as the RSPB sending in postcards. There are 800 substantive responses.Defra hope to make an announcement on key matters before Christmas.

Basic payments: Dynamic Allocation System of entitlements: Defra not keen due to questions over lawfulness and annual administration costs and recognise this is a negative but they cannot afford the additional costs and risks of complexity and disallowance.

Mapping: RPA have undertaken new mapping of all claimed and registered commons. The mapping is complete and now in the process of ratification of eligible areas and quality checking with the contractor and the RPA. Overall the process is 40% complete. Cumbria is 68%, and will be completed by end December.

Commons Council: Brendon consultation resulted in sufficient support to set up a Commons Council. Congratulations to them to getting to this stage.

Little work has been done on progressing the commons council since the last committee meeting. Defra are indicating that they will not maintain staff resources for developing commons councils indefinitely. It may be possible to apply for funding via cooperation funding stream in NELMS for the running of the Commons Council. FCC may be have an underspend of the NE grant and any monies left over can go towards the council set up and running.

Action: Viv to liaise with Grant McPhee and complete the ‘making the case report’

RSPB: HNV farming launch: After some debate FCC signed up to RSPB’s HNV campaign, our main reason was to make sure that farming was centre stage in the campaign. We supplied text for the manifesto and most of it was used. Julia attended on behalf of the Federation and the Foundation for Common Land. The event itself was co-hosted by fourAll Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs). It was opened by Baroness Sue Miller (Agro-ecology APPG), HuwIrranca-Davies MP (Biodiversity APPG) and Angela Smith MP (Conservation & Wildlife APPG), later joined by Tim Farron MP (Hill farming APPG).

Naddle and Swindale: 50 sheep have been removed from the Waters and sheep numbers on other hefts have been reduced. We continue to inform them of the potential impact of their plans to severely cut back sheep numbers and ask them to be good neighbours and respect local farming systems and traditions. Viv has attended two meetings organised by Robert McCosh, Dalemain for affected commoners. They will be asking RSPB to employ a shepherd to push back their sheep and reduce sheep ingress; also for compensation for the potential extra labour that commoners are likely to incurr. Viv and Julia met Dr Andrew Brown (Chairman of RSPB’s Conservation Committee) to express our concern about what is happening at Naddle/Swindale emphasising the lack of engagement with the local farming community. Viv has written to Rory Stewart.

The Foundation for Common Land are just starting the “Better Outcomes on Common Land” project which aimsto improve working relations, or interaction,between organisations to strengthen ourability to safeguard and manage the uplands. The Naddle and Swindale area is one of the case studies in this project.

Action: Viv to keep a watching brief and report back

Young Commoners: the Foundation for Common Land has some funding for a young commoners network. Jim Campbell is identifying young commoners who may be interested in joining. A meeting will be held soon.

Action: Viv to liaise with Jim

Preparation for AGM 2014: Agreed to hold the AGM either 28th February or 7th March at Newton Rigg. Potential topics: Implementation of Part 1 of the 2006 Commons Act; NELMS. Duncan suggested we invite George Monbiot - Viv to ask him.

AOB: TB testing: Defra are proposing to abolish the pre-movement testing exemption for movements of cattle to and from common land by the end of April 2014, with the possibility of a waiver for movements from the common land back to the premises from which the cattle were turned out where the distance moved does not exceed a set distance limit.Up till recently this would have been a minor issues for commoners in Cumbria, but Natural England has insisted on cattle grazing being included in many of the recent UELS/HLS schemes. We agreed to responding to the consultation

Action: Viv to respond

Dave asked how other commoners associations claim back VAT on capital items in HLS scheme. One example is that the cost of the capital works is divided up among a number of VAT registered agreement holders who are invoiced directly by the supplier/ contractor. In turn they invoice their commoners association to get reimbursed.

Date of next meeting: 21st January 2014