News
UK Environmental Protection Bill Update
The second hearing of the Proposed UK Environmental Protection Bill is due to take place on the 12th May 2017. The House of Commons will debate the proposal to safeguard protection measures for the UK. These are currently enshrined in EU legislation and the...
Kent Great Crested Newt District Licensing Project
Natural England (NE) are currently in the process of rolling out a GCN district licensing project in Kent. The aim is to implement district licensing in 6 districts in Kent from November 2017. A Kent wide conservation strategy...
District Great Crested Newt Licensing Update
Figure 1; NE plan of distribution of GCN EPSML activity in 2015 and 2016; provided at CIEEM webinar; available here. Red - highest areas of EPSMLs granted. Green – lowest. Uncoloured – no EPSML granted. Bakerwell recently reported on the new...
Green-Infrastructure Design Challenge
ARCC launched their 2017 challenge to provide ideas for an office roof top green infrastructure as building service design at Eco-build. The Adaption and Resilience in the Context of Change (ARCC) challenge is open to teams, students, practitioners and researchers....
A Review of the Online Biodiversity Planning Toolkit
The Biodiversity Planning Toolkit was created by the Association of Local Government Ecologist (ALGE) in partnership with conservation and planning organisations with the aim of incorporating biodiversity into the planning system and new development. The toolkit...
Natural England’s New EPS Policies; An Update
Bakerwell previously reported on Natural England’s new European protected species (EPS) licensing policies which were approved in December 2016. The policies will mainly be of use with great crested newts, but are also aimed to cover species such as...
CIEEM Invasive Species Webinar
CIEEM have provided an excellent seminar covering the policy, legislation and regulations on invasive species in the UK and Ireland. Key points from the regulations are that landowners must act responsibly and not allow or encourage a listed plant or animal to grow or...
New Garden Villages
The location of 14 new garden villages of between 1,500 and 10,000 new homes has been confirmed by the Government. To support their development a two year £6 million fund will be made available and new planning freedoms will be offered. The new garden villages are1: *...
Natural England’s New Licensing Policies
Natural England (NE) held a consultation in 2016 on proposed new policies for licensing of impacts on European Protected Species, which commonly affect bats, great crested newts (GCN) and dormice1. Following completion of the consultation NE released the new policies...
Change to Protected Species Licensing (Revised 16 March 2017)
Natural England (NE) have proposed changes to the licencing process for development in regards to European protected species. The aims of these changes are to reduce costs and delays to projects, but is this what the results of the Woking great crested newt (GCN)...