Judicial review asking as to the application of the EU Regulation governing a single payment scheme of support to farmers. In outline under the relevant scheme support for farmers was no longer linked to a farmer’s scale of production. There was an initial once-and-for-all allocation of entitlements to payment at the beginning of the scheme in 2007. Once distributed, entitlements became a form of property rights distinct from the underlying farmland or farming rights from which they originally derived. A farmer’s entitlement to payment was denominated in so many hectares in any year and he had to activate that entitlement by declaring that he was carrying on agricultural activity on specific agricultural land at a specific point in the year. Farmers could sell entitlement, to other farmers, without selling the land or rights from which they originally derived. There was no provision allowing redistribution of those entitlements as the scheme progressed to reflect actual use being made of the land or rights to which they originally related, the relevant mechanism for changes being the market
Cranston J
[2016] EWHC 1692 (Admin)
Bailii
England and Wales
European, Agriculture
Updated: 19 January 2022; Ref: scu.566886
