When ministers unveiled a “supercharged” package for nature recovery in England at the start of December, the Landscape Recovery (LR) scheme was billed as the flagship: £500 million for long-term projects to restore rivers, peat, woodlands and wildlife, while keeping farmers in business.

But within days of the announcement, farmers, conservation bodies and potential investors were focused less on the money and more on a line buried in the small print of project contracts:
a “termination for convenience” clause that allows the government to walk away from 20–30-year agreements with just 12 months’ notice.

For a scheme explicitly designed to reshape land use for a generation, that single clause has become a lightning rod for wider concerns about trust, investment risk and the future of agri-environment policy in England.

What the Landscape Recovery scheme is supposed to do

Landscape Recovery is one of three Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMS) in England, alongside Countryside Stewardship and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). It is the experimental, big-ticket arm: instead of paying for individual fields or margins, it funds landscape-scale projects through bespoke agreements expected to last more than 20 years. naturalengland.blog.gov.uk+1

According to NFU guidance, the first rounds of LR have been open to groups of land managers coming together over 500–5,000 ha areas to deliver large-scale land-use change, supported by “public and private sources” of finance. NFU Online

Defra has already approved two waves of pilot projects:

  • Round 1 – 22 pilot projects
    Together they aim to restore nearly 700 km of rivers, enhance or protect 263 species, across more than 40,000 ha. NFU Online

  • Round 2 – 34 projects
    Involving more than 700 farmers and landowners, covering over 200,000 ha. The round’s published aims include restoring 35,000 ha of peatland, creating over 7,000 ha of woodland, and benefiting 160 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). NFU Online

A Natural England blog post in early December confirms that more than 50 projects are currently in development through these pilot rounds. naturalengland.blog.gov.uk

In theory, Landscape Recovery should show how productive farming, private finance and nature restoration can co-exist – and do so at the sort of scale needed to hit England’s legal targets under the Environment Act, including halting species decline by 2030 and restoring hundreds of thousands of hectares of habitat by 2042. GOV.UK+1

The funding pledge: £500 m over at least 20 years

On 1 December, the government published a revised Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 (EIP) and announced a headline £500 million allocation for Landscape Recovery projects. GOV.UK

The Defra press release frames this as:

  • £500 m invested over at least a 20-year period to support LR projects.

  • A focus on restoring wildlife-rich habitats, reducing flood risk and improving water quality.

  • An assurance that where land is taken out of food production, this is “typically on lower-grade agricultural land”, so the anticipated impact on overall food output is “minimal”.

  • An emphasis that most LR projects continue farming in the project area, held up as evidence that food production and environmental delivery can go “hand in hand”. GOV.UK+1

Environment secretary Emma Reynolds described the revised plan as a “step change in restoring nature”, backed by “hundreds of millions of pounds to revive iconic landscapes”. GOV.UK

On paper, that sounds like a significant down-payment. But critics quickly pointed out the scale of the gap between earlier expectations and the new settlement.

Reporting by The Guardian notes that when ELMS was first conceived, Landscape Recovery was envisaged as taking roughly a third of the £2.4 billion annual farming budget, reflecting its central role in long-term nature recovery. Under the new EIP, LR instead receives £500 m spread over 20 years – roughly £25 m a year, a fraction of what had been implied. The Guardian

As conservationist Jake Fiennes put it in that article, the figure may sound large, but set against a £2.4 billion yearly farm support pot, it represents only a small sliver of public spend for the government’s most ambitious nature scheme. The Guardian

The clause that changed the mood

If the funding headline initially soothed nerves, the mood shifted rapidly as Project Implementation Agreements began landing in landowners’ inboxes.

An investigation by journalist Nicola Cutcher in late November revealed that these agreements include a “termination for convenience” clause, allowing the government to end LR contracts with no fault on the part of the farmer or land manager, giving just 12 months’ notice. cutcher.co.uk

Her piece reports that farmers and landowners felt “reeling” on discovering this, given that many projects have spent years developing proposals for what are marketed as 20–30-year schemes involving major land-use change. cutcher.co.uk

Defra, in its response to questions, stressed that such clauses are “standard practice” in government contracts and that many agri-environment schemes already allow termination on three or six months’ notice. What is different here, officials argue, is that Landscape Recovery actually has a longer 12-month notice period, implying greater security than some existing schemes. cutcher.co.uk

However, for those contemplating irreversible changes – such as re-meandering rivers, wetland creation or long-term rewilding – that reassurance rings hollow. As Cutcher notes, the clause is seen by participants as “entirely inappropriate for a 20–30 year project”, potentially posing an “existential threat” to nature recovery efforts that depend on long-term certainty. cutcher.co.uk

Farmers Weekly has subsequently confirmed that this 12-month termination clause appears in all LR agreements, covering more than 50 projects in development and the first two now in implementation. Farmers Weekly+1

Farmers’ and landowners’ fears: ‘The rug could be pulled after 12 months’

Behind the legal language are very practical worries about risk and cash flow on real farms.

Cutcher quotes one farmer involved in LR describing the situation bluntly: if the government can walk away after a year, “that’s untenable” for businesses being asked to restructure around permanent land-use change. cutcher.co.uk

The Farmers Weekly piece paints a similar picture. It reports that LR groups have spent years forming partnerships and designing “blended-finance” models intended to unlock significant private capital, only now to find that their core government contract could be halted with a year’s notice. Farmers Weekly+1

Tim Coates, a farmer and director of the Evenlode Landscape Recovery project in the north-east Cotswolds, told the magazine that his 3,000 ha river-restoration scheme, involving more than 50 farmers including tenants, has built strong relationships with Defra over three years. He says that for every £1 of public funding, the project already has around £2 of private investment “ready to deploy”, potentially enabling nature-market transactions worth more than £200 m and delivering public benefits, such as flood-risk reduction valued at nearly £1 billion over the project lifetime. Farmers Weekly

Those figures are illustrative of what LR is supposed to achieve: long-term, multi-partner projects where public money crowds in private finance to deliver large-scale environmental gains. But they also highlight why legal certainty is such a sticking point. If a project is planning tens or hundreds of millions of pounds of private investment on the back of a government contract, a 12-month break clause looks like a major credit risk.

Gavin Lane, president of the Country Land and Business Association, is quoted describing the exit clause as a “serious flaw” in an otherwise promising plan, warning that investors “won’t commit if the future is uncertain”. Farmers Weekly

George Dunn of the Tenant Farmers Association goes further, arguing that for schemes demanding long-term investment and matched private funding, Defra “cannot have its cake and eat it” by reserving such broad termination powers. Farmers Weekly

The core concern is simple: if contracts can be cancelled mid-stream, the people taking the on-farm risk are left exposed, particularly tenants and smaller landowners who may have limited ability to absorb sunk costs or reverse land-use changes at short notice.

Government and agency response: ‘Standard practice’ and termination safeguards

Defra and its delivery bodies insist that the legal framework is being misunderstood.

Officials stress that termination-for-convenience clauses are rarely used and say agreement-holders would be able to claim termination costs from Natural England if a contract were ended early, providing a “strong level of protection”. That reassurance is echoed by Professor Dominick Spracklen of the University of Leeds, who leads the Upper Duddon LR project in Cumbria and told Farmers Weekly that early termination mechanisms are “rarely used” in practice. Farmers Weekly+1

From the government’s perspective, the revised Environmental Improvement Plan and the £500 m allocation demonstrate a clear long-term commitment to LR. Natural England’s deputy director for Landscape Recovery, Chris Davis, welcomed the funding as an investment in “critical nature infrastructure”, arguing that LR projects will help reverse biodiversity loss, tackle climate change and support sustainable livelihoods for farmers. naturalengland.blog.gov.uk+1

The official notes to the EIP press release also emphasise that:

  • LR will typically focus land-use change on lower-grade agricultural land.

  • The majority of projects continue farming in the project area, demonstrating that food production and environmental delivery can be integrated.

  • Over half of English farmland is already in one of the nature-friendly schemes (SFI, Countryside Stewardship or LR), with an enlarged SFI offer due to open next year. GOV.UK

In other words, Defra’s line is that LR is central to its long-term environmental strategy, and that fears of contracts being casually scrapped are overblown.

Underfunding and diluted targets: critics see a pattern

Yet the legal row over the termination clause comes on top of broader unease about the trajectory of farm-environment policy.

The same Guardian investigation that highlighted the LR funding cut also notes that under the current government, nature-friendly farming schemes have been “beset by difficulties and delays”, including:

  • A £100 m cut to overall scheme funding.

  • A temporary freeze on new SFI applications, leaving farmers locked out, with ministers promising to reopen the scheme in the new year. The Guardian

Conservation groups also argue that the revised Environmental Improvement Plan has watered down ambitions for nature on farmland. Alice Groom, head of sustainable land policy at the RSPB, told the paper that previous modelling suggested 65–80% of farmers managing around 10% of their land for nature was needed; under the new targets, this has been reset to 41% of farmers managing 7% of land, which she describes as a “huge step backwards”. The Guardian

Seen in that context, £500 m over 20 years for LR looks less like a transformative investment and more like what one MP has called a “down-payment” that may fall short of the scale required. The Guardian

The risk, critics say, is that England ends up with nature recovery on paper but not on the ground: a patchwork of under-funded, legally fragile projects that fail to attract the private capital ministers are banking on.

Blended finance and investor confidence

Central to the Landscape Recovery model is the idea of “blended finance” – using public money to unlock private investment in carbon credits, biodiversity net gain, water quality improvements and natural flood management.

Natural England’s December blog explicitly frames LR as a way to “establish a framework to attract private investment into large-scale, nature-based projects”, citing examples such as:

  • The Ock and Thame LR project, which brings together around 80 participants across nearly 8,000 ha, aiming to build a freshwater network while supporting farm businesses.

  • The Boothby Wildland project, where Nattergal has partnered with engineering firm Arup on nature-based carbon removal, seen as a template for how private finance can support long-term habitat restoration. naturalengland.blog.gov.uk

The logic is compelling: with public budgets limited, private nature markets – from carbon to water quality offsets – are expected to play a growing role in meeting legal environmental targets. LR is one of the main test-beds for that ambition. naturalengland.blog.gov.uk+1

But investors, whether banks, utilities or pension funds, tend to be conservative. They typically require:

  • Stable, long-term contracts with clear cash-flow profiles.

  • A regulatory and policy environment that is unlikely to shift dramatically with each change of government.

  • Clarity on who bears the risk if policies, targets or political priorities change mid-project.

A government contract that can be ended unilaterally with 12 months’ notice sits uneasily with that risk calculus. Both Cutcher’s investigation and Farmers Weekly’s reporting suggest that potential private funders are already nervous, with some legal advisers reportedly urging clients not to sign until the issue is resolved. cutcher.co.uk+1

In short: legal uncertainty doesn’t just worry farmers – it could choke off the private investment the whole LR model depends on.

Food production vs nature recovery: a live political fault-line

For many farmers, there is a parallel concern about how LR interacts with domestic food production.

Defra insists that taking land out of production will largely affect lower-grade land, and that most LR projects continue farming within the project area, often shifting to more extensive systems or agro-ecological approaches. GOV.UK+1

But NFU briefings on both ELMS and the Environmental Improvement Plan have repeatedly warned that cumulative impacts – from LR, SFI, tree planting and other land-use changes – are not yet fully understood, and that there is a risk that productive capacity is eroded piecemeal without a coherent national land-use strategy. NFU Online+1

That debate is sharpened by wider political moves, including a forthcoming planning and infrastructure bill that would allow developers to pay into a central “Nature Recovery Fund” rather than meeting all environmental obligations on site – shifting more of the burden for habitat creation onto rural areas. The government’s own impact assessment admits there is little evidence that environmental protections significantly block development, raising questions about whether nature is being asked to carry an unfair share of the trade-off. The Guardian+1

Against this backdrop, some farmers see LR as both an opportunity and a warning: a chance to secure new income streams for marginal land, but also a signal that land-use decisions are being driven increasingly by environmental targets and development pressures rather than food policy.

What happens next?

Three immediate fault-lines will shape the future of the Landscape Recovery scheme:

  1. Contract reform vs ministerial flexibility

    • Farmers, landowners and conservation groups are likely to press for stronger contractual guarantees, perhaps limiting termination for convenience to extreme fiscal or legal circumstances, or requiring longer notice and more robust compensation.

    • Ministers and Treasury officials, by contrast, will be wary of locking the state into hard-to-exit 30-year liabilities, particularly in a volatile fiscal environment.

  2. Clarity on private-finance risk-sharing

    • If LR is to unlock the private capital that Natural England and Defra envisage, there will need to be clearer rules on how private investors are protected if government policy shifts. Without that, the blended-finance model could stall.

  3. Balancing food production and environmental outcomes

    • Government messaging stresses “minimal impact” on food production, but farm unions are already scrutinising the cumulative land-take from LR, tree planting, solar and infrastructure. The politics of food security will weigh heavily on how far LR can expand beyond current pilot rounds.

For now, the Landscape Recovery scheme sits at an awkward crossroads: financially under-powered compared with its original promise, yet still potentially transformative, and now overshadowed by a legal clause that many participants say undermines the very long-term trust it was meant to build.

Whether that tension is resolved through negotiation, contract revision or political pressure will determine if LR becomes the backbone of England’s nature recovery – or a cautionary tale about how not to structure long-term environmental policy.

References

  • UK Government – Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 press release and Landscape Recovery funding notes. GOV.UK

  • Natural England – “Landscape Recovery and growth: building the foundations for critical nature infrastructure” (Chris Davis). naturalengland.blog.gov.uk

  • NFU – “Everything you need to know about the Landscape Recovery scheme” (scheme design, pilot project numbers and hectares). NFU Online

  • Farmers Weekly – “Landscape Recovery projects rattled by Defra’s exit clause” (Philip Case, 4 Dec 2025). Farmers Weekly

  • Nicola Cutcher – “Is Defra putting its flagship Landscape Recovery scheme at risk?” (blog, 27 Nov 2025). cutcher.co.uk

  • The Guardian – “Nature recovery plan in England hit by clause allowing contracts to end with a year’s notice” (Helena Horton, 5 Dec 2025). The Guardian

  • Additional context on targets and land-use trade-offs from EIP 2025 commentary and planning bill coverage. cla.org.uk+2The Guardian+2