SCR2Manage scrub and open habitat mosaics

What it actually is

The management half of the scrub pair. Where SCR1 grows a mosaic from nearly nothing, this action keeps an existing one in balance: the parcel enters with scrub on at least 10 per cent of its area, and you hold dense and scattered scrub on between 10 and 60 per cent, with open grassy and flowering ground between. The tools GOV.UK names are patchy cutting or light cattle grazing, with the non-woody vegetation managed so the sward varies and scrub can regenerate in places. Standing and fallen deadwood stays where it is if safe, and mature and veteran trees stay in place. GOV.UK's stated aim is the mosaic itself: a variety of shrub species, heights and structure, with growing trees and deadwood where relevant.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR2 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 4 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Ground already 10 per cent scrub or more is ground that left serious production some time ago, so the forgone income question mostly answered itself years back. What the rate buys is the work: rotational cutting of patches, or running cattle lightly through, and the restraint of leaving the deadwood and the old trees alone. Cattle grazing is permitted, so unlike SCR1 the parcel can stay in the stocking plan at a light rate, and for many farms the action describes roughly what the rough ground was getting anyway, now with a payment attached and a percentage to hold. The sheep exclusion is the one real system change for some: a scrubby bank that winters the ewes cannot be entered without finding them somewhere else.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; requirements from GOV.UK, SCR2 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 honest position matches the sibling page's. The nearest graded assessment, allowing shrubland to regenerate without active management, is Likely to be beneficial on 15 studies, scored 62 per cent effectiveness, 60 per cent certainty, 0 harms, but its studies are mostly shrublands recovering after fire in other countries and biomes. What it establishes for this action is the pressure the management works against: scrub, left to itself, reliably thickens and spreads, which is why holding a mosaic at 10 to 60 per cent is a job rather than a hope. For the mosaic's wildlife value itself, the mixture of shrub species, structure and open flowery ground the aim describes, we have not found a graded assessment on lowland English farmland, and we say so rather than borrowing scores from elsewhere.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 1679, Allow shrubland to regenerate without active management, Shrubland and Heathland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026, including their note that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. Cite as Martin et al. (2020), Shrubland and Heathland Conservation, pages 483 to 525, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers. The reading is Tilth's own.

What you actually have to do

Hold dense and scattered scrub on between 10 and 60 per cent of the area, with open areas between, managing it by patchy cutting or light cattle grazing. Manage the non-woody vegetation so the sward varies and scrub can regenerate where wanted. Leave standing and fallen deadwood, and mature and veteran trees, in place where safe. Static: the same parcel throughout.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR2 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

No sheep grazing. No ploughing, cultivating or re-seeding. 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. No gamebird release, and no supplementary feeding beyond non-energy mineral blocks. No drainage works without written permission. No disturbing breeding birds or damaging nests, which in a scrub parcel is a real constraint on when the cutting happens.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR2 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Parcels below the moorland line with scrub already on at least 10 per cent of the area, across the TG01, FA01, TC01, PG01, WO25 and NF03 land use codes. 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.

Source: GOV.UK, SCR2 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

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 nesting rule times the cutting. Scrub is where the birds nest, disturbing them is prohibited, and patchy cutting is the required tool. In practice that pushes the cutting into the colder half of the year, and the year's management plan should start from that window, not end at it.

Light grazing has no number here. Cattle, lightly, is the wording; the mosaic percentages are the test. If the cattle are opening more ground than the 10 per cent floor allows, they are no longer light, whatever the stocking sheet says.

The sheep ban is absolute, not seasonal. Sheep browse out the regeneration the mosaic needs, and the page excludes them outright. Winter keep on the rough bank is the use most easily forgotten in August and most missed in January.

Sixty per cent is a ceiling that creeps. Scrub expands sideways every year it is left. The percentage is worth actually estimating annually, from the same photographs, because the drift from 55 to 65 happens without anyone deciding it.

Both scrub actions, one boundary between them. Under 10 per cent existing cover is SCR1 at the higher rate, at or over is this action. Where a farm has both kinds of parcel, the pair can run side by side, each on its own ground.

Keeping the evidence

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

Stocking records where cattle do the work, field operations and invoices where the cutter does, and photographs either way. The annual set of photographs from fixed viewpoints is doing double duty here: it is the compliance record and it is the cover estimate, and dating them makes the mosaic's drift visible before it becomes a problem.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, SCR2 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

How much of the rough ground is actually scrub, which patches are thickening, and where the ewes will winter instead: map questions and stock questions, both yours. Tilth holds the map, the stocking log and the yearly photographs in the same place, which is what keeps a percentage honest over three years. Request an invite.