great crested newts and developers

[sbeau66]

hello every one, i'm new here
But I have an important question to ask, if the great crested is so protected that its an offence to disturb or handle it, how come there's an 800 house development being built on its habitat in romsey hampshire, they know they are there and intend to move them, its one of the largest GCN colonies in hampshire, being last surveyed at 200+ newts, why are they allowed to do this? any ideas? ,,,,,,,,,

[Dan Salter]

Mitigation measures (translocation/relocation) would have been set out in the Environmental Impact Assesment...and various management plans and compliance rules.

I agree it is shocking....but sadly 'money' usually wins out.

I will let someone more knowledgeable like Gill explain it, as she does this stuff for a living.

[sbeau66]

I hope the newts will be ok, a sit seems to me the developers don't know what they are doing, they have fenced off the pond which is in the middle of the field and put a herd of cows in to graze, there were no cows before, if the newts are hibernating in the field they will be surely trampled by now and if they are hibernating in the hedges and bushes how are they gonna get to the pond past the cows, it seems wrong to me

[Beekeeper]

I don't know if G C Newts are on the CITES endangered species list but if it turns out they are, then you could cause the developers a big headache.

As for the building of 800 homes in Romsey, that really is an obscene idea, it will destroy a lovely town which i know very well.

Ian

[thunder]

As Dan says, mitigation measures will be required (though don't forget one of the meanings of mitigate is appease). If you think building on a colony of 200 is bad, what about the Peterborough Southern Township? There is little that will stop housing development.

henrya

[Dogghound]

Something similar happened here, where traps were installed and newts collected and removed from the site and re-located before building began. When I have to do a slight amount of habitat management I have to apply for so many licenses and take great care yet building work seems to find this part easy.

[captain nodge]

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Something similar happened here, where traps were installed and newts collected and removed from the site and re-located before building began. When I have to do a slight amount of habitat management I have to apply for so many licenses and take great care yet building work seems to find this part easy.

quote
Back handers springs to mind, un quote

[BP Badger]

While the Chiver's Pit site where the crested newts live is sadly going ahead with the building (the newt zone will be left undeveloped, but that still doesn't mean there will be an impact), the current battle that we are currently occupied in is to save the fields and hedgerows around Whitenap, where the afformentioned 800 homes plan to be built by the Prince's Trust. It is currently being redrafted, but the fields have a stream winding through the hedgerows, which we plan to investigate for signs of crested newt activity. Any idea as to how we would go about doing this?

[dampflippers]

BP badger.
Are you a member of an ARG group? If not, find your local one and ask their advice.
ARG-UK - Amphibian & Reptile Group of United Kingdom
You will definitely need permission from the landowner to do a survey unless you can see it from a highway or footpath.

[Matt Smith]

Originally Posted by sbeau66

hello every one, i'm new here
But I have an important question to ask, if the great crested is so protected that its an offence to disturb or handle it, how come there's an 800 house development being built on its habitat in romsey hampshire, they know they are there and intend to move them, its one of the largest GCN colonies in hampshire, being last surveyed at 200+ newts, why are they allowed to do this? any ideas? ,,,,,,,,,

As to the why, this is up to the Local Planning Authority. They are the people who effectively designate an area for housing, once an area is designated like this in the Local Structure Plan then it is effectively "lost" already. There is a strong presumption that planning applications on the are will go through in some form or other.

Sadly, environmental considerations seem to have little weight when these areas are being allocated unless a very good case is made for them while the Local Plan is under consideration. Councils will not by themselves normally fund surveys to decide if land should or should not be given the green light for development. Even if GCN are known to be present on site (as with a site in Basingstoke which I have a lot of experience of), there seems to be a general presumption that "the developer will take case of it",

Any development of a GCN site should be licenced by Natural England. In order to obtain a licence the site needs to be surveyed to establish the size of the population on site and the impact the development will have. The developers, usualy with the aid of their environmental consultants, must produce a method statement (how they will do it) and a mitigation plan (how they will make up for their development in terms of the newts) and how much follow up survey work is needed.

These must be approved by Natural England and make up part of the conditions of the licence, which is a legal contract. NE can send the developers "back to the drawing board" if they do not consider the proposals are adequate for a licence to be granted. If the method statment says "we will build 2 new ponds of size X here", they have to be built.

(Are you sure 200+ GCN is a large colony, at Basingstoke over 6000 GCN have been translocated as part of a 750 home development?)