Great Crested Newt Surveys

Great crested newts are protected under European law and development of a site containing them cannot legally be undertaken without a licence. If your site contains ponds, ditches or other waterbodies or is within 500m of any waterbodies there may potentially be great crested newts on the site. Ecological Sustainability can assess sites to determine potential for great crested newts to be present. If suitable habitats are found further full surveys can be carried out. A presence/absence survey can be carried out if there is only a need to establish whether great crested newts are present or not. This requires 4 survey visits. Generally, a population size class assessment is usually required. This requires 6 survey visits and allows an estimate of population sizes to be made. A population size class assessment is essential if development of a site is proposed. Without this information it is not usually possible to obtain a licence allowing development of a site. Surveys suitable for obtaining a licence can only be carried out between March and June, with at least half of survey visits required to be between mid-April and mid-May. It is therefore important to begin investigations into great crested newt presence on site at the earliest opportunity. If this survey period is missed it could obviously cause delay in obtaining a licence. All our surveyors possess the necessary survey licence enabling them to use any of the required survey methods for great crested newts. If great crested newts are found a translocation will be required before development of the site can take place. This involves trapping newts onsite and relocating them to a suitable area outside the development area. This will require a minimum of 30, 60 or 90 suitable trapping days depending on population sizes on site. Trapping can only be carried out generally during spring, summer and autumn.

As well as great crested newt surveying, Ecological Sustainability have many years experience of carrying out great crested newt translocations and obtaining the licences necessary to allow translocations and development of sites.