What Is It With Great Crested Newts?

• Published date: 25 August 2020
• Subject Matter: Government, Public Sector, Government Contracts, Procurement & PPP
• Law Firm: Rollits LLP
• Author: Ms Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley

For a species that has spent the last 40 million years paddling around in ponds, celebrity (or perhaps notoriety) has come late in the career of the Great Crested Newt. However, for those in planning and environmental circles it is a familiar emblem: for some a bold illustration of species protection in action, for others a depressing example of red tape stifling development. And now, the Great Crested Newt is in the news again. This is because the way the newt is dealt with in the planning system is changing, bringing a radical new approach to how the government proposes to protect and encourage biodiversity.

The Great Crested Newt is currently protected under Schedule 2 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010 and Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which make it a criminal offence to damage or destroy the newts, their eggs, breeding sites or resting places without a licence from Natural England. In practice developers are often obliged to rescue and relocate individual newts from ponds prior to development. This can be an expensive and time consuming process, especially as relocation is restricted to certain times of year.

However, this is now set to change in a move towards "district level licensing".

The new system, developed by Natural England, involves gathering data to build up a picture of the distribution and habitat condition of the Great Crested Newt at district level. From this, the organisation will assess the impacts on the newts from all planned development in the whole district over the whole local plan period. Developers of affected sites will then pay a proportionate tariff for newt habitat creation. This marks a significant departure from the individual application assessments currently undertaken, which look only at a single site around the time of the application.

In August 2020, Natural England published its Action Plan for 2020-21, which supports the government's 25-year environment plan and includes details of plans to reform wildlife species licensing work towards the...