Exegesis were approached by Historic England to develop a portal where applicants to the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agri-environment scheme could request information on the historic and archaeological features on their holding.
Following a request, the portal creates a SFI Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (HEFER) and emails the applicant when it is available to download. The SFI HEFER document identifies any known features on a holding, which may comprise:
The new SFI HEFER portal built on processes underlying the SHINE portal, which Exegesis had successfully developed, managed and supported for several years, but using our open-source cloudscribe platform.
Because the SFI portal is self-service, particular attention was paid to content and design. Part of this was to ensure that applicants could request a HEFER with the minimum of difficulty using a simple form. The portal also has a clean, clear design and contains only necessary content.
In 2022 the SFI HEFER portal is being enhanced and rebranded so that applicants to the Countryside Stewardship agri-environment scheme can also request HEFER documents.