The Environment Agency and the Rural Payments Agency should continue to take an initially supportive approach when monitoring compliance, given the low levels of engagement and the fact that most farmers want to do the right thing for their soils. Follow ups will be essential to ensure that compliance breaches are being adequately addressed. If this “supportive” approach is, however, a key method of spreading awareness of farming regulations, then the inspections regime should also be boosted. We recognise that remote technologies and approaches will be able to help, and we are pleased that the EA has more funding to conduct site visits, but these still need to be more comprehensive and frequent; visiting just 4% of farms every year will not act as a deterrent to bad actors, nor help the farmers that could benefit from the “supportive” approach.