By 7 December my Department had received 14,742 applications to join REPS 2. Of these, 12,011 have already been paid and a further 818 have been approved for payment. The remainder, apart from the applications rejected as deficient, will be processed having regard to the payment targets in the protocol on direct payments to farmers. The number of applications received in 2001 is the largest since the first REP scheme was introduced in 1994; the highest number in a previous year was 13,000 in 1996.
The restrictions on farm visits during the foot and mouth disease emergency meant that REPS planners could not go onto farms to prepare agri-environmental plans for potential applicants. This created a backlog of applications which was compounded by the fact that large numbers of participants in the first scheme came to the end of their contracts this year and would have been expected to apply for the new scheme.