SCR1Create scrub and open habitat mosaics

What it actually is

You take a parcel that is nearly scrub-free, under 10 per cent cover, and grow a mosaic on it: scrub developing on between 10 and 60 per cent of the area, by natural regeneration, by planting a variety of native scrub species, or both, with grasses and flowering plants holding the open ground between. The supporting requirements: control wild herbivores, deer and rabbits above all, enough that the scrub can establish; leave standing and fallen deadwood where it is safe to; leave mature and veteran trees in place where safe; and where tree guards are used, keep them from damaging what they protect and remove them once the trees are away. GOV.UK's stated aim is the mosaic itself, varied species, heights and structure, feeding insects, sheltering wildlife, softening woodland edges and holding soil.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page. Multiplied out:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date. The 3 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what it costs to put in. Possibly very little: natural regeneration is a permitted route, and on ground near a seed source the scrub arrives on its own. Planting native species is the dear route, at your own nursery prices, and herbivore control, fencing against deer and rabbits where they are thick, can be the largest real cost of the whole action. Grazing is prohibited on the area, so the parcel leaves the stocking plan entirely.

Step two: what the ground was returning. The rate must be judged against the parcel it actually suits. On working arable this action makes little sense and the arable margins on our other pages say why. On the ground it was written for, the steep bank, the awkward pightle, the field corner the sprayer dreads, the forgone income is small and the rate stands nearly whole.

Step three: the long cost. The exit. A parcel carrying three-year scrub is expensive to return to agriculture and may attract its own protections as habitat matures. Enter ground you are content to see stay rough, and the action is well paid; enter ground you secretly want back, and it is the wrong action however the arithmetic reads.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; requirements from GOV.UK, SCR1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The judgements are Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. We have named every source and given the date we checked it. What it means for your ground is your decision.

The evidence fit here needs stating plainly before the scores. Conservation Evidence assess allowing shrubland to regenerate without active management, and grade it Likely to be beneficial on 15 studies, scored 62 per cent for effectiveness, 60 per cent for certainty and 0 for harms. But the studies behind that grade are mostly shrublands recovering after fire, in the USA, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Norway and UK heathland, not scrub arriving on English farmland. What transfers is the mechanism the whole action leans on: across those 15 studies, shrub cover reliably rebuilt itself without anybody planting anything, five trials found recovery after fire increased shrub cover or biomass, a Californian study saw cover climb from 4 to 15 per cent up to 45 to 92 per cent in five years, and an Oregon trial reached parity with undisturbed shrubland inside ten. Shrubs, given the chance and spared the herbivores, come back on their own. That is the best-evidenced fact on this page, and it is the fact SCR1's natural regeneration route relies on.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 1679, Allow shrubland to regenerate without active management, Shrubland and Heathland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026. Cite as Martin et al. (2020), Shrubland and Heathland Conservation, pages 483 to 525, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers.

What we have not found is a graded assessment of the thing the aim actually describes, a scrub and open-ground mosaic on lowland farmland, measured for the insects, birds and other wildlife the GOV.UK page names. Conservation Evidence say themselves that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value, and that relevance to your own situation matters more than counting studies; a sagebrush recovery in Idaho is about as far from a Essex field corner as that caveat stretches.

Source: the note under key messages, Conservation Evidence, action 1679, checked 23/08/2026. The closing sentence is Tilth's own reading.

What you actually have to do

Manage the area so scrub develops on between 10 and 60 per cent of it, by natural regeneration, planting a variety of native scrub species, or both. Control wild herbivores enough for the scrub to establish. Leave standing and fallen deadwood, and mature and veteran trees, in place where safe. Keep tree guards off the wood they protect and remove them once trees are established. Static: the same parcel throughout.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

No livestock grazing. No cutting of vegetation, except to control injurious weeds, invasive non-native species, rushes, nettles or bracken. No fertilisers, manures or lime. No pesticides, except herbicide applied by weed wiping or spot treatment, and only to control injurious weeds, invasive non-native species, nettles or bracken. Rush can be cut under this action but is not on GOV.UK's herbicide list. No ploughing, cultivating, re-seeding, harrowing or rolling. No gamebird release and no supplementary gamebird feeding. No drainage works without prior written permission.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR1 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Below the moorland line, on parcels currently carrying scrub on less than 10 per cent of their area, across arable, temporary grassland, fallow, horticultural permanent crops, improved permanent grassland and the scrub land covers. Ineligible: any area designated as an SSSI, and any area containing an historic or archaeological feature, which GOV.UK says only affects the area where the feature lies, leaving the rest of the parcel eligible if it otherwise qualifies. GOV.UK also says the action is not suitable for peatland, because creating scrub could damage it, or for land used by breeding waders, because they need open grassland habitat. That last one matters if you are also weighing the wader action GRH12, since scrub and ground-nesting waders are deliberate opposites in this offer.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The wader observation is Tilth's own reading.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The gamebird rules bite on shooting farms. No gamebird release and no supplementary gamebird feeding on the entered area, and scrubby corners are exactly where release pens and feed rides like to live. Map the shoot against the parcel before entering it.

Herbivore control is a requirement with a bill. Where deer pressure is real, the scrub will not establish without exclusion or control, and the action requires that it establishes. Price the fencing or the stalking before the application, not after the first browsed-off winter.

The 10 per cent entry test is a measurement. Under 10 per cent existing cover qualifies for this action; at or over 10 it belongs in SCR2 at a lower rate. Walk it, map it, and keep the estimate honest, because the two actions pay differently for a reason.

No grazing means the mosaic is cut or grown, never eaten. Unlike its sibling, SCR1 keeps stock off entirely. The open ground between the scrub still needs managing toward varied sward, and with grazing off the table that is the mower's job, within the cutting restrictions.

Scrub is patient and agreements are not. Three years grows thorn to knee or waist height, a mosaic in its infancy. The action's benefits and its exit costs both mature after the agreement ends, and both belong in the decision.

Keeping the evidence

Also Tilth's own reading. GOV.UK sets the requirements; what follows is a practical suggestion about record keeping.

Field operations with invoices, and photographs. This is another action whose story is told best by the same viewpoints photographed over three years: bare corner, first thorn, mosaic. Keep the planting invoices where planting happened and a note of the herbivore control done, since establishment is the requirement the photographs have to show.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, SCR1 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Which corner of the farm you would happily let roughen for good is a question about the next decade, not the next agreement, and only you can answer it. The record that supports the choice, the corner's real margins, the passes it eats, what it yields against the field's average, is the kind Tilth keeps field by field. Request an invite.