A Higher Level Stewardship Agreement with Natural England was signed in September 2008, to run for 10 years until 2018.

Environmental Stewardship is an agri-environment scheme that provides funding to farmers and other land managers in England to deliver effective environmental management on their land.

Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) is in the top tier of options available under this scheme and aims to deliver significant environmental benefits in high priority situations and areas. It involves complex environmental management. There is a wide range of management options available and these are designed to support key features of the different areas of the English countryside. More detail can found on Natural England's Higher Level Stewardship web page.

Those areas of the common covered by the SSSI notification are currently in the scheme. These parts were previously under a Countryside Stewardship Agreement (a forerunner of Environmental Stewardship).

The targeted funding and advice available via HLS helps the district council maintain and enhance the nature conservation value and (implicitly) the biodiversity of the common.

It is hoped to bring additional areas of the common into the agreement during the term of this management plan, to increase the overall benefit to the habitats and the wildlife that lives here.

The habitat types covered by the HLS agreement are lowland heathland and species-rich, semi-natural grassland. The map below shows the areas covered by the agreement, as it applies to each habitat type. The agreement also provides funding related to the maintenance of the herd of Exmoor ponies on the common. For more detail, including specific management prescriptions and indicators of success, please see appendices HK6 to HR2.