Nice Crested Newts – Implications for UK Companies and Builders

Is your UK enterprise more likely to be affected by the Nice Crested Newt? This amphibian species, legally protected within the UK below the Wildlife and Countryside Act, is frequent in lots of components of Southern and Jap England. Along with the animals themselves, their habitat, consisting of ponds and ditches the place they breed and land as much as 500m from their breeding ponds/ditches, is protected by laws. The laws was strengthened in 2000 and the implications are nonetheless filtering via to enterprise, with growing impacts being felt notably on enterprise actions involving improvement and use of land, together with brownfield websites.In case you undertake an exercise that harms this species or its habitat with out having first obtained a website licence from DEFRA, you might be more likely to break the legislation and probably face a major tremendous. This is applicable no matter whether or not you have already got planning consent for a improvement exercise.

So when you’ve got a pond, ditch or different water physique on or close to some land you might be planning to develop, are you more likely to have this species? Some elements that improve the danger of Nice Crested Newts being current in a selected water physique in England are as follows (in roughly reducing order of significance):
Water physique near (inside 1km) of different ponds;
Any mixture of hedgerows, scrub, woodland, tough grass, derelict land connecting, or almost connecting, the water physique to different close by ponds;
Any of the next: scrub, hedges, shrubberies, woodland inside 200m of water physique;
Water clear;
Fish absent;
Water physique largely unshaded.
Authorized implications of the species being current on a website rely upon the actions proposed, recommendation ought to all the time be sought earlier than taking any choices that will contain protected species. For indicative functions solely, among the offences referring to the Nice Crested Newt can embody:
Deliberately or intentionally seize or kill;
Deliberately injure;
Intentionally disturb, or deliberately or recklessly disturb in a spot of shelter or safety;
Harm or destroy a breeding website or resting place;
Deliberately or recklessly injury, destroy or hinder entry to a spot used for shelter or safety.

Many companies should cope with the implications of getting the Nice Crested Newt and different protected species current on their land, and are in a position to efficiently handle the difficulty to allow their proposed actions to proceed legally and profitably.Nonetheless, surveys and mitigation actions for this species, in frequent with different protected species, are restricted to sure seasons of the 12 months, so it’s price beginning the method of addressing any protected species points as quickly as potential to avoid wasting money and time.