RP9: Earth banks and soil bunds

This item is part of Capital Grants 2025. You must read the Capital Grants 2025 guidance to understand the rules and how to apply.

If you’re applying for this item as part of a Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) application, you must read the CSHT applicant’s guide to understand the rules and how to apply.

How much you’ll be paid

£195.61 for each unit (a unit is 100 metres of bund).

How this item benefits the environment

You can use an earth bank or soil bund to:

• slow the movement of water, protecting streams and rivers from pollutants
• slow flows during high rainfall and reduce downstream flooding
• control water levels to aid raised water levels for habitat creation and restoration
• retain surface water runoff and allow increased groundwater recharge (the capture and storage of groundwater)

This item can help you protect, recover and improve biodiversity on your land.

Where you can use this item

You can use this item on sites identified in either a feasibility study, implementation plan or a Catchment Sensitive Farming water holding structure action plan developed with Natural England either:

• in areas targeted to reduce water pollution from agriculture
• in combination with management actions or options to create, restore or manage habitats or features with the approval of your Natural England adviser

Catchment Sensitive Farming provides advice where there are water quality or flood risk issues linked to farming.

You’ll need to get any necessary consents from the Environment Agency, local council or internal drainage board before you start any work.

You must also contact your local planning authority to check if planning permission is required to carry out the planned work.

Your Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (HEFER) will identify:

• scheduled monuments
• registered parks and gardens
• registered battlefields
• Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England (SHINE) sites

You must not use this item on scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens or registered battlefields without written approval from Historic England.

You must not use this item on SHINE sites without written approval from your local authority historic environment adviser.

What you must do to use this item

You must complete the construction as set out in your feasibility study, implementation plan or a Catchment Sensitive Farming water holding structure action plan developed with Natural England.

Evidence you must keep

You must keep and provide with your claim:

• photographs of the site during the different stages of construction or contracts, invoices or other documents confirming the technical specification for the completed works
• photographs of the completed work
• any consents or permissions connected with the work

You must also keep and provide on request:

• receipted invoices or bank statements where a receipted invoice is unavailable
• photographs of site before works start
• a copy of the feasibility study, implementation plan or a Catchment Sensitive Farming water holding structure action plan developed with Natural England

Read the record keeping and site visit requirements in the Agreement holder’s guide: Capital Grants, Higher Tier capital grants and Protection and Infrastructure grants for more information.

If you’re applying for this item as part of a Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) application, read the record keeping and site visit requirements in the CSHT agreement holder’s guide.

Other items you can use with this item

You can use this item with these items:

RP7: Sediment ponds and traps

RP11: Swales

Advice to help you use this item

The following advice may help you to use this item, but you do not have to follow it to get paid. It’s not part of this item’s requirements.

Picking a location

Use this to improve water quality, position bunds or banks to intercept run-off on or around:

• tracks
• small and lightly contaminated yards
• hard standing
• the bottom of slopes or the base of gulleys
• runoff flow pathways

This item also works on grassland and arable fields, either on their own or to support buffer strips.

Designing and constructing the earth bank or soil bund

Details of the design and construction of the earth bank or soil bund will be in your study or plan. You’re likely to need to:

• form infiltration basins into ‘V’, ‘U’ or ‘C’ shapes
• measure bunds in a continuous length of 100 metres (m) per unit with up to a 250 square metre (m2) runoff store
• dig down 0.8m in depth
• grade side slopes to no more than 1 in 3
• where used for natural flood management, ensure half the stored water can empty within 24 hours
• compact the soil when damp to strengthen the structure
• plant grass species in banks that can withstand wet and dry conditions
• establish vegetation on the basin floor to reduce sediment erosion
• build bay silt traps where soil erosion is high to stop the basin from becoming blocked
• regularly remove excess sediment from banks and bunds, reapplying it back to the field and making sure you monitor the nutrient status
• contact the Environment Agency to check if a waste exemption is required

Enhancing buffer strips

To enhance buffer strips, you should:

• place soil bunds at the field edge of buffer strips (to slow runoff)
• build bunds 300 millimetres (mm) to 500mm high by 600mm to 1000mm wide
• place larger bunds where complex field slopes divert runoff to pinch points

Establishing soil bunds

Compact down soil bunds and then sow a seed mixture at a rate of 24g per m2.

Form the seed mix from grass, legumes and wildflowers. For example:

• creeping red fescue (70%)
• smooth meadowgrass (20%)
• creeping bent (10%)

Building weirs and outlets

Weirs and outlets can be built into the design as they can discharge more water than pipes and are less likely to block up.

Direct the water on to stones or boulders to slow flow for piped overflows, or weirs in ditches and ponds.