Land reclamation/ tidy up

As Bird nuts said, watch the legalities of what you want to do, what exactly and what time of year.

I know a lad who pulled every ditch out of a farm he bought and got away clear because it's not in his maps ie - he's not drawing anything out of it. (Hes maxxed out elsewhere)

I don't know how that would go for him if the dept of ag figured out that the owner of that farm is an active farmer on other ground, but I don't think they've access to land registry info unless the damage was massive.

What I do know is that I got an inspection over a couple of clumps of Rhododendron and widening a farm road.

The two who called were sound, and accepted that there were no ditches or hedges taken out but I wouldn't be doing more in a hurry without prior approval.

They'd reduce your payments, but worse, - they'd hold up the lot for a year or two and if depending on them, that would cause hardship.

I suppose that’s fair though.
the Schemes are a payment to farm in a certain way. If they not paying them why would a farmer be compelled to do the activities?

Pulling out hedges isn’t tied to a scheme though that’s controlled through legislation and breaking that is a big risk for someone reporting the farmer and fair enough.

As for other scheme related activities, it’s important we don’t accept these as normal practice. If your not getting paid to do something that’s a scheme specific activity then it’s not compulsory at all.