Rural Payments Agency officials advised John Parson, aged 90, to withdraw his six-month-old Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) application due to a technical hitch at their end and then resubmit it.

He was left dumbfounded when less than two working days later on March 11 the government closed the SFI scheme without warning - leaving him high and dry.

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John Parson with wife Margaret (Image: Sonya Duncan)

"On Friday, March 7, around noon, I received a phone call from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) informing me that our application could not proceed due to a glitch on their system," he explained.

"Apparently, our recently completed Countryside Stewardship agreement was being shown up as being live thus blocking any new request.

"The helpful RPA adviser told me that the best thing to do was to withdraw our application already in the pipeline and submit a new one but they would need a confirming email from me which I duly sent.

"I received confirmation on Monday, March 10, but online the application was shown as being rejected rather than withdrawn which seemed a little odd........

© Eastern Daily Press