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10 February 2020
If you are planning a project that will impact on great crested newt or badger, you may now need to budget for additional project costs.
Last year Natural England began a phased implementation of statutory charges for protected species licence application services.
Charges for great crested newt mitigation licences will be implemented from Monday 17th February 2020. This includes new applications and modification requests (such as amendments to the schedule of works) received from this date onwards, unless the licence issued falls under the exemption criteria.
Natural England intend to introduce charging for badger licences for development purposes from Spring 2020.
Costs are expected to follow on from the current charging scheme for bat species and hazel dormouse licence applications; there is a single application charge for assessing a 'simple' scheme, or a standard charge plus a variable charge per hour on top for the assessment of a 'complex' application.
Pricing information issued in Spring 2019 indicated that:
A great crested newt mitigation licence application will be £700.00 for a 'simple' application or a standard charge of £183.00 plus a variable charge of £101.00 per hour for a 'complex' application.
A badger development licence application will be £260.00 for a 'simple' application or a standard charge of £61.00 plus a variable charge of £101.00 per hour for a 'complex' application.
At the time of writing these costs are yet to be confirmed for 2020.
ECOSA ecologists are highly experienced at navigating through the licensing process and we regularly secure protected species mitigation licences on behalf of our clients. If you have any queries regarding protected species licensing, get in touch with our offices and speak to one of our expert consultancy team, or email admin@ecosa.co.uk.
