March 31, 2024 • 57 mins
In this insightful episode of the Ecology Academy podcast, we explore the fascinating world of district licensing in ecological conservation with Sarah Garratt and Andy Buxton from NatureSpace. We delve into Sarah's contribution to NatureSpace's strategic licensing approach and Andy's role in the conceptualization of district licensing. Additionally, we discuss the importance of data in ecological research and predictive modelling's role in conserving Great Crested Newts.
We uncover the rigorous data collection process at NatureSpace and its amalgamation with species distribution modelling for newt conservation. Learn about our noteworthy strides in district licensing schemes and the remarkable improvements in landscape suitability for newt habitats.
The episode unearths NatureSpace's successful collaborations with reputable organizations such as the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust and the University of Kent's Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology (DICE). We also delve into the benefits offered by district licensing to developers, both in terms of cost-saving and environmental impact.
We highlight the dedicated efforts of NatureSpace in creating and restoring habitats and the long-term management strategies with Natural England. Listen in as we explore the science-led approach of district licensing and how it promotes a collaborative outlook for multiple stakeholders.
The episode wraps up with the future of NatureSpace, integrating district licensing with biodiversity net gain (BNG) for better conservation outcomes, and how the district licensing scheme can benefit the advice given to developers by ecological consultants.
If you are a developer looking for practical solutions to ecological impacts and survey challenges, this enlightening conversation offers valuable insights and strategies. Join us as we unravel district licensing schemes with NatureSpace!
NatureSpace
Website: https://naturespaceuk.com/
The ‘old’ standard licensing route for great crested newts through Natural England often takes many months, without any specified deadline and requires a large amount of evidence to be submitted during the process. This option can often result in huge delays to development timelines and has gained great crested newts an unwelcome reputation.
Our District and Organisational Licence Schemes offer a simple and quick alternative, which is also available all year-round. Unlike Standard Licensing there is no need to wait for the seasonal survey window (March – June), there is no requirement for additional survey information to be provided and we can deliver a site assessment within just 10 working days.
Our Natural England approved impact assessments ensure developers pay fair and proportionate fees for their proposed development impacts, with money going straight into habitat creation, delivered by our NGO partners off-site. These compensatory habitats are created in strategic locations for newts, away from the pressures of development. Our partners create, manage and monitor these aquatic and terrestrial habitats for at least 20 years, ensuring a sustainable future for newts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm Richard Dodd and you're listening to the Ecology Academy podcast.
This is a show where we get to talk and learn about all things ecological,
including interviews with top ecologists, both employers and employees,
those working with ecologists, and also aspiring and inspiring career-seeking
individuals setting out to make a difference.
(00:21):
The show aims to provide you with insights, advice and inspiration to help you
succeed and excel as an effective ecologist and to make a real difference to
our natural environment.
Joining me today on the Ecology Academy podcast, we have Sarah Garrett,
Chief Operations Officer and Andy Buxton, Head of Science from NatureSpace.
(00:43):
So good morning to you both. Good morning, Richard.
Excellent. Right. So we're going to jump straight into it. So,
Sarah, please do tell me a little bit about yourself and also before we go into
NatureSpace itself, itself, just about your background in terms of where you
got to in terms of nature space today. Thanks, Richard.
So yeah, I'm Chief Operations Officer at Nature Space.
(01:05):
I've been working with nature space for the last six years, seven years,
developing a strategic licensing approach, which we're going to talk about a little bit more.
And I suppose I got into this through protected species licensing work,
working in local planning authorities, a planning ecologist,
(01:25):
and just a general interest in all things European protected species.
Excellent. Great. And Andy? So yeah, I'm Head of Science at NatureSpace.
I've been involved with the scheme since before it was launched in various guises.
So originally as an advisor and then did a lot of the habitat creation and statistical
modelling that underpinned the scheme before my current role.
(01:48):
Before that, my PhD is from the University of Kent looking at environmental
DNA error rates, So survey error rates, detection probabilities,
false positives, false negatives, things like that, and operationalizing eDNA as a survey method.
Before that, I was a consultant actually sitting at a desk in the building that
you're currently sitting in, Richard, above where you're sitting right now.
(02:11):
So that was five years as a standard commercial ecologist for an engineering company.
Well, we're looking after the building. Don't worry. It's a lovely building.
I'd say at the moment we can hear the water flowing underneath the mill building,
so it got a bit scary last week.
Yeah, we're still, the floor was still dry, so that's good.
(02:32):
It wasn't one year I was there. Oh, right. Okay. Thanks for that.
Something to look out for.
Okay, so in terms of then NatureSpace, let's look at the scheme itself and your company.
So Sarah, just tell us a little bit about NatureSpace, why it was set up and what you do.
So NatureSpace came about because we, Tom Chiu and I were having conversations with the NGOs,
(02:56):
particularly amphibian and reptile conservation trust
and the freshwater habitats trust about seven
or eight years ago and it was at the time where there
was a lot of interest from government into a
better regulation and the red tape agenda and how
protected species were being dealt with in the licensing regime particularly
(03:18):
great crested newts and there was also a growing awareness in the environmental
sector that perhaps traditional approaches to new mitigation on development sites wasn't working,
wasn't having the desired outcomes.
And at the time, Natural England had been looking at developing new licensing
(03:38):
policies as a way of broadening the remits of licensing and broadening what
could be allowed under under standard licensing programs.
And the idea of a more strategic approach to licensing was starting to become more embedded.
Natural England had started with a pilot in Woking and we came up with an idea
(04:00):
with a group of local planning authorities across the South Midlands to pilot
another approach to district licensing.
And that's where Nature Space was born.
Okay, so these pilot studies, what year were these started then?
So the NatureSpace pilot started in 2018, February 2018, so just over six years
(04:22):
ago, and then it grew from there.
So now we're working with more than 60 planning authorities across quite a large
part of England, and the pilot has become embedded as a district licensing approach.
In the early days, it was very much a, let's see if this works.
And in the meantime, time natural england have also developed their
(04:43):
own approach to district level licensing how
you do strategic licensing like this
alongside or shortly after
the planning system okay so in terms of i suppose the i mean the problem or
you were trying to solve then in terms of for i say different different stakeholders
aren't there really so it's the it's the developers you know the maybe Maybe
(05:07):
also landowners as well. There's the local planning authority.
And of course, you know, obviously this is an ecological podcast,
so maybe ecological consultants.
So in terms of solving a problem for, and of course, newts, great restitutes.
Okay, so in terms of, I mean, it's impressive now that 60 local authorities
(05:29):
are actually on board now.
But going back to the root of the, I suppose, a problem for maybe developers,
landowners, local authorities, and of course, newts themselves.
So, I mean, how has nature space, you know, helped each of these or may,
you know, each of these, you know, address a certain problem that they have?
(05:49):
So let's look at it from, I mean, the local authority point of view.
So how do you take it from being a pilot study to spreading it to these 60 plus
local authorities? Thank you for your time, and I'll see you in the next video.
Well, yeah, the very first license was granted for two years to the first seven
planning authorities. So that was the pilot.
And then since then, with the proof of concept, it's working,
(06:10):
it's having demonstrable outcomes, and I'll invite Andy to talk some more about that in a minute.
More and more local planning authorities wanted to get on board with the scheme.
I think the reasons for that were the scheme was designed primarily as a conservation
scheme, so it had new conservation at its heart as a fundamental driving principle.
(06:31):
This has to lead to better outcomes for newts.
But also it had to work for developers because otherwise they will never pay into the scheme.
They would never pay if it didn't work for them. They have other options. They would use those.
And it had to work for planning authorities because the idea is that this is
(06:52):
integrated within the planning system so you can achieve efficiencies of time
and avoid delays and avoid conflicts between what might be allowed in the planning
system and what's subsequently allowed in the licensing system.
So it was designed to iron out all of those crinkles in traditional approaches
to standard litigation, development litigation.
(07:16):
So we had to satisfy all of those requirements.
We had to design a scheme to deliver better conservation outcomes.
Outcomes, and now five years, six years on, we're in a place where we've got
lots of data and we can really start to look at what those outcomes are,
but it also had to work for the other parties as well.
Yeah. In terms of, I said, let's look, so how did the local authorities gain then?
(07:41):
So what problem are you solving for them?
How does it work in terms of them easing their burden, shall we say?
Well, I think when there's a standard approach to survey and impact assessment,
mitigation and on-site compensation,
the local planning authorities are having to deal with that decision-making
(08:01):
on their own and independently.
With Natural England's future licensing decision being completely separated
from that part of the process.
So you've got the local planning authority weighing up whether or not a proposal,
a development proposal is going to impact on newts and whether those impacts
can be dealt with properly and whether the planning authority's decision meets
(08:24):
the legal requirements set out in the habitats regulations,
regulations whether it's meeting their legal requirements to
have regard to the requirements of the habitats directive for
example and they're having to make that decision on their own they're having
to decide whether a license is likely to be granted by natural england at some
future date what this scheme does for them apart from solving unfortunate delays
(08:49):
in having to wait for survey data,
is giving them certainty, giving the planners certainty that a license can be
granted because license has already been granted.
So they've got that certainty of position in their decision making that if a
scheme, if a development proposal can use a district license,
and we have to assess that on a case by case basis.
(09:12):
But if a development scheme is coming to a local planning authority and saying,
here's my certificate, I can use this district licence, then the local planning
authority has got that confidence that all of their legal requirements are also met.
Yeah, so you're taking away that, as you say, that uncertainty then in terms
of, you know, will Natural England grant this licence application?
(09:33):
So satisfying the three tests then, so you're taking on that burden on their
behalf, is that correct?
Well, kind of. We're taking on that burden through Natural
England as the the licensing regulator they continue
to act in that role natural england regulates
all of the licenses that granted whether that's a district license
or a standard license but what
(09:55):
we're doing is bringing forward natural england's decision making
getting the licensing scheme in place before the local planning authorities
are having to make their decisions right okay so you mentioned previously about
obviously the data you know it's been six years now you You collect that data
in and obviously better outcomes for Greg Reston-Newton.
(10:16):
So it may be bringing Andy now
in terms of the data then that's been collated over the past six years.
So how does this feature?
So why is it important to collect the data and what are you doing with it?
Well, first of all, this, as Sarah said earlier, is a conservation outcome-focused scheme.
(10:37):
The whole reason for doing this is to give better outcomes for great crested
newts than the standard mitigation licensing that we have been using for the past 30 years or so.
So we need to be able to demonstrate that this is in the best interest of great crested newts.
So we have a very, very stringent and extensive monitoring and evaluation program that sits alongside it.
(10:59):
So we're monitoring not just the compensation ponds that our partners put in the ground,
but we are looking at the levels of occupancy and habitat suitability in the
wider landscape to make sure that the work that we're doing exceeds the suitability
as a general rule or on the level with the wider landscape.
(11:24):
So we have we're very very
expensive and and
full-on monitoring program we conduct
every year so every pond that we we have or our partners have created or restored
is monitored with with occupancy assessments so usually edna for the first five
(11:46):
years and then the the number of visits cuts down but we're still going to be
monitoring for the full time that they're secured secured.
We use extended HSI, so habitat suitability index, surveys across all of these
ponds, so we're visiting them very frequently to make sure that they are meeting
the requirements of the standards that the habitat that we create is.
(12:08):
It is set within our license.
On top of that, we were doing population assessments to make sure that we are
not just putting in the ground the odd occupied pond here and there.
The ponds that we are creating are forming a core section of metapopulations
so that they are the real drivers for population in the locations which they're situated.
(12:31):
That they're the ones that can be seeding in
time will be the ones that are seeding further expansion of
the population we we link all of
our assessment for of the regional scale to to the favourable conservation status
metrics so we evaluating before we get the license what the current status of
great crevasted newts is based on on wider surveys for for range distribution
(12:56):
distribution, population,
habitat, and prospects as well.
So how they're likely to be, the trajectory of the species in the area.
And then we are updating that regularly post works.
So yeah, very intensive evaluation, both pre and during the scheme running.
(13:17):
Yeah. And in terms of that final evaluation then, you've got this data.
Do you publish this at all in terms of any research papers going on at the moment?
So, we are, as Sarah mentioned earlier, just past the six-year mark.
So, we're operating on a five-year cycle. So, we've about a year ago came to
(13:38):
the end of our first five-year evaluation cycle where we have been doing a deeper dive into the data.
I'm sure you appreciate the lead-in times with analysis and getting things published,
but we have a couple of things in the works that should be coming out relatively soon.
We are going to be publishing the data, but academic timeframes mean that it's
(14:00):
not out yet. But a lot of this evaluation is based on, in fact,
the whole scheme is based around predictive modelling.
So we have species distribution modelling at the core of it,
which gives us our lovely five-coloured risk zone map.
So white, green, amber, red and black, which firstly allows the impact assessment
to look at the likely presence of great crested newts for a development site.
(14:24):
But we can also build on that with evaluation. So one of the big pieces of work
that I've been doing recently, and I presented on it at the Herp Workers' Meeting
a month or so ago, and I think this will probably have gone out by the time
I'm presenting it to SAIM next week.
One thing that you can do with the species distribution modelling that we use
is you can firstly use it to predict where newts are now.
(14:46):
So you look at the landscape variables and where you've got data,
and you can identify the suitability of every single point across the landscape
on whatever scale you're looking.
We used about a 25-metre grid across the whole of the region,
every region that we're working on.
So you can then change the input variables with the work that we've done.
(15:10):
So where ponds have been lost, where ponds have been created,
where habitat has been – or the habitat changes through development or the habitat
changes through terrestrial improvements that our partners have created.
And you can look at the overall suitability
of the landscape just considering the work that you've been doing and this
is what i'm going to one of the papers that we've we've been pulling together
(15:31):
at the moment and we're showing even after five years a
statistically significant increase in suitability across the landscape based
on the based on the district licensing scheme which is fantastic and i was not
thinking it would be that i don't didn't think we would get a statistically
significant output on the lands on the scale that we're talking so for the the
So the original area we launched in was about 4,500 kilometres squared.
(15:54):
On that scale, a statistically significant change over just five years is huge.
It's fantastic to see for the species.
And you mentioned about partners there. So who do you, I mean,
I don't know if it may be a question to Sarah, I don't know,
but in terms of partners, partnerships.
How were those formed and who were you partnering with? other than local authorities, you know.
(16:20):
So we work very closely with Amphibian and Rectile Conservation Trust and the
Freshwater Habitats Trust.
And we have done throughout the development and operation of the district licensing scheme.
But our closest partner now is the Newt Conservation Partnership,
which, like Nature Space, was a new entity set up specifically to deliver the scheme.
(16:42):
So all of the staff at the Newt Conservation Partnership are experts in freshwater
or amphibian ecology and conservation.
They're all seconded from either FHT or Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust.
And their entire reason to be is to deliver the conservation outcomes of this scheme.
So they're out on the ground working with landowners and securing habitats,
(17:07):
setting management plans, creating the habitats and then monitoring them and
managing them thereafter for the next at least 25 years. So they're our main partners.
We developed the original species distribution models with DICE,
who'd been really progressing the use of that kind of advanced modelling technique for this purpose.
(17:35):
DICE is the Daryl Institute for Conservation and Ecology at the University of
Kent. Thank you. Thanks, Andy.
So they've been heavily involved in the development and design of the modelling
inputs to the scheme, which underpin it because Great Crested Newts are particularly
suited to this kind of strategic approach.
(17:55):
Their habitat requirements, habitat suitability can be modelled,
and you can design a spatial
conservation strategy that helps you decide
where the good places are across the landscape
to deliver those improvements in conservation
status so range distribution within
(18:16):
the range increases in habitats and increases in populations and improvements
to prospect okay okay thank you so i'm going to just change a little questioning
in terms of now okay if i was a if i was a developer so you know i'm submitting
a planning application to to a local authority.
(18:37):
NatureSpace is one that, you know, operates within that local authority themselves.
How, well, what's the process of, A, the developer knowing about the scheme?
So where do they get their information from?
Where is it, you know, where did they come from?
And I suppose let's run through a little process of, okay, now I've identified
NatureSpace as an option.
(18:59):
Why would I go with NatureSpace? So let's go back to that first question then.
And so how does a developer find out about the scheme itself?
So the local planning authorities who have this option available.
They tend to have some information on their websites.
And we have a team of district licensing officers who are working,
(19:20):
whose job is to support local planning authorities in identifying where impacts
on nukes might arise through proposed development, development planning applications.
And giving those developers and the planners the full suite of options available.
So where newts might be impacted by a proposed development, what are the options for that developer?
(19:44):
So district licensing is one of several licensing options.
The developer can choose to go out and survey, do their own surveys,
wait for the survey season,
go out and use that traditional standard approach to ascertaining whether newts
are likely to be on or around the development site and therefore whether they're
likely to be impacted by whatever type of development is proposed there. They could do that.
(20:09):
And if they find they've got great creative nukes, then they've got licensing options.
They might be suited for the low impact class license.
They might wish to go down the standard licensing route or they can use the district license.
Now, the district license is designed, as we've said already,
to present benefits to developers.
They don't have to wait for the survey season. They don't have to go and do those new surveys.
(20:33):
They can just enter at any point in the year. But at any point during that planning
application process, the developer
can opt into the district licensing scheme as one of their options.
So they find out about it through the planning officer or going on to the planning
authority's website and just seeing that suite of options that's available to them.
(20:53):
Okay. So, I mean, looking at it from, I suppose, an ecologist's and as an ecological
consultant's point of view.
Now, probably an ecological consultant is being engaging with their clients
prior to anything going into the local authority.
So maybe the first knowledge of this scheme or different schemes,
(21:17):
should we say, was probably going to be presented by an ecological consultant
rather than local authority. Is that fair?
Yeah, that's true, actually. And so we do try hard to reach out to ecological consultants.
And we work with the ecologists in local planning authorities as well, where they are there.
And we're trying to get the message out. And a lot, to be honest,
(21:41):
is spread by word of mouth, where people have used,
ecologists have used the scheme before and want to use it again because of the
benefits that the scheme delivers. livers.
So there's that element. The ecologists already know about it.
We've got information on our website.
We try and get information out there to share with the wider world.
(22:03):
For example, the monitoring report, which I'm sure we'll loop back to in a bit,
that the New Conservation Partnership have just published.
So getting the information to the ecologists, not just on the benefits for developers,
but the conservation outcomes of the scheme is also really important.
Okay. Yeah, I think that's it in terms of, I suppose, you know,
if we want, if you say we, you know, if we obviously we all want successful
(22:26):
outcomes for Great Western Utes, that's the ultimate aim for,
you know, obviously Nature Space,
for ecological consultants and, you know, local authorities and a lot of people,
you know, so it's a lot of different interested bodies there.
In terms of, I suppose, you know, breaking that barrier,
you know, if an ecological consultant is going to sell or advise their clients
(22:48):
on a particular licensing route or scheme,
that enables them to, because the developer just wants to get their project
finished, you know, over the line, completed.
As you say, it may be time sensitive, more than likely it is.
There's certainly going to be a budget associated with their proposal as well.
I suppose, let's look at it from an ecological consultant's point of view.
(23:13):
How are you, I say, raising awareness to those local, those ecologists?
And also, I mean, here we go. How would you enable us or advise us to maybe
promote the scheme over and above others, you know, and where's the balance to be had?
Yeah, so I think, you know, we're always looking for ways to talk to ecological
(23:37):
consultants and get the message out there about what the scheme can deliver
for their clients, for your clients, and the benefits to,
well, all the benefits that we've already talked about.
So we're trying to get better at that messaging and communications.
And it's a tricky balance, isn't it?
Because you can spend a lot of time on social media and people need information.
(24:04):
So getting that information out to people is always really important.
And we do offer training courses.
People can come to us for bespoke sessions and the team will go along and explain
to them about how the scheme works, benefits for clients.
So that can sometimes help within individual consultancies.
(24:27):
And like i say trying to really spread the word about
the the outcomes and now we've got
demonstrable outcomes and publications coming out
then that's then that's information that we can share with
people yeah i mean that's that's important in terms
of i suppose that you know if we look at uh you know the the traits
behaviors of agricultural consultants you know that they're technically minded in
(24:48):
terms of them you know they you know has probably got high ethical value
you know ethics in terms of okay oh am i only going
to promote something if it actually does work and for the benefit of
the newts that's that's their main area you mentioned about
okay yeah coming back demonstrable results monitoring
reports so you know
how crucial and what what is involved within these monitoring reports that may
(25:13):
enable like an ecological consultant then to you know have confidence within
the the scheme itself so the monitoring report that has just been published
by our partners, the Newt Conservation Partnership,
has broken down all of the pond creation that they've been doing over the past
five years since the original scheme launched and the seven LPAs.
(25:34):
And then they've created or restored over that nearly six-year period,
because this was the data and it's up until December 23, nearly 360 ponds have been delivered.
And then they also break down the amount of terrestrial habitat that has been created created.
As compensation for the scheme.
(25:58):
We're also, within this report, looking at the colonisation of the ponds that
they're creating because it is a policy not to seed the ponds that we're creating with newts.
We don't want to be transporting them around the country. We don't want to be transferring disease.
So we have a very strong policy of natural colonisation for all the habitat we're creating.
So it is presenting the occupancy rates
(26:19):
and bear in mind that the vast majority of
the ponds that we do is all they do is pond creation so they're
very very young ponds we're already showing through that a off
the top of my head 42 percent pond occupancy rate and most
of these ponds are within one or two years of age which is
very very high a few when when i
have looked at the evaluation it just did the oldest set of
(26:40):
of lpas the pond occupancy rate
is considerably higher than that and colonization
is moving it continues up until at
least year four or five with an upward trend so
we're probably not seeing our
full occupancy rate of the compensation ponds yet so
that that isn't yet reflected in the monitoring reports because we're not at
(27:03):
that stage it's still a very young scheme in the lifespan of an individual newt
what else is in the monitoring report so yeah it basically breaks down the compensation
that's been provided and the the occupancy and hsi data that has been collected
over the years alongside it.
And they do touch on their levels of impact to make sure that they're presenting
that we are well ahead of our legal requirements in terms of bond creation compared
(27:28):
to the impacts, the gain multipliers that we have to apply there as well.
I think it's the scale that the delivery is at as well.
And, you know, we're not creating thousands of ponds,
but we are creating hundreds of ponds that are really well designed in good
places to allow new populations to strengthen and expand and be reconnected
(27:52):
across the landscape with all the benefits that that brings,
not just for newts, but for the wider biodiversity as well.
And that's considerably more than has been possible to achieve through standard
approaches to licensing.
And whilst we've all got examples of where individual site-based approaches
(28:13):
have worked and can work.
Equally, there are many, many more examples of where it just simply hasn't worked
for one reason or another.
It's, you know, whether it's a lack of expertise that the developer has enlisted
to help with habitat creation on the development site, whether it's just the
(28:33):
type of development and newt conservation,
newt survival just don't usually match. match.
The houses get occupied and the newts disappear, even if you do manage to retain
some decent habitat on site.
And then all of the other long-term issues with actually looking after newt habitat for newts.
(28:57):
And quite often that monitoring and management just doesn't get done on development sites.
There are conflicting management requirements requirements and the nukes lose
out long-term and survival of the population is.
By no means certain and in many cases the population
just goes extinct so what we're doing here is
(29:18):
completely different that doesn't mean there isn't a
place for on-site compensation and on-site mitigation in certain circumstances
that's that's part of this scheme as well but it is in certain circumstances
where there are clear benefits to the new population and then proper proper
long-term management and monitoring is secured through the planning process.
(29:41):
But mostly what we're doing is delivering off-site compensation,
really high quality habitats delivered by experts in good places that are secured for the future.
And there is at least 25 years of management and monitoring that is secured
through a legal agreement with Natural England.
And going back to one of your earlier questions, Richard, one
(30:03):
of the benefits for planning authorities is that they're not part they
have no long-term responsibility for
that long-term management and monitoring we do
and the new conservation partnership do and natural england
regulates and will hold us to account to
that but the developers don't have any long-term responsibilities either we
(30:24):
take that all away so no matter what happens on the development site when the
developers built houses and moved on and is thinking about the next site it
doesn't matter because all of the compensation requirements have been dealt
with, bio's properly secured.
There's one exception to that, and that is under the Nature Space District licensing
(30:46):
scheme, we can consider on-site enhancements or creation of habitat,
provided it is secured by an HMMP that has...
Very stringent long-term suitability for
new requirements associated with it and then the developer would
would maintain a little bit but of a requirement
to report to us on on the long-term suitability and we would actually go out
(31:09):
and compliance check most of those yeah so there is there is that element that
we can and we do consider what is happening on a development site to reduce
an impact assessment, reduce the overall impact.
But in those circumstances, the developer does need to take on a little bit
(31:30):
of long-term responsibility.
Yeah. Okay, so there is, yeah, so there's part of that, the on-site enhancements,
and you mentioned HMP, so that's Habitat Management Plan, is that correct?
Habitat Management and Monitoring Plan. Monitoring Plan as well,
okay, and followed by the Compliance Jack.
So I think this is what, you know, as maybe a practicing ecologist then,
And so what reassures me is it gives you, as you mentioned, the expertise,
(31:54):
the knowledge. It's a science-led approach.
You've got that consistency as well.
And that collaborative approach, you've got those experts in,
say, from the Nuke partnership and yourselves.
And obviously, you know, it does benefit multiple stakeholders.
As you mentioned, the developers can sort of...
(32:15):
You know it benefits them yeah in a lot of
ways but i think in overall it benefits
great crested newts and i think i think i can
see that you know with that that from this approach i'd expand
on that it benefits a huge variety of things on top of
great crested newts pond creation landscape is it is
key to freshwater conservation that freshwater habitats
(32:36):
trust our partners will bang on about this at length but
creating fresh clean water freshwater
ponds within within the farmed
environment within within the wider landscape has a
much much bigger impact on overall biodiversity than
than river restoration or other
other types of freshwater conservation or planting a piece of woodland per
(32:58):
unit area so this this scheme
is focused on great crested newts is funded by
great crested newts but we're having a measurable wider benefit
to the landscape as well i was at ponds earlier this week i was
running the new conservation partnerships survey survey training actually and
they took us to this this very big site
in the forest of dean that they'd been working on for the last few
(33:20):
years and the number of
toads that are using that pond which is a priority species they're declining
across the country where we're actually monstrously worried about toads was
fantastic to see it's been 10 years since i've seen that many toads in one location
so we're having we're having massive benefits on other amphibians this site
that we were at, the local.
(33:41):
Dragonfly recorder had been out to, and it is now their favourite site in the Forest of Dean.
So we're having huge benefits beyond just Great Crested Newts.
This scheme is designed for wider biodiversity, funded through Great Crested
Newts, but Great Crested Newts are key.
We have to demonstrate that we are benefiting them, but there is so much else going on.
(34:03):
Perhaps we can have a conversation about the wider benefits. Now, obviously,
biodiversity net gain for instance so so as
this come into as mandatory within england so i
mean how does it come how does nature space
so it complements you know biodiversity net gain
so is there is a room for you know
(34:23):
this district licensing scheme and how does
it you know impact upon or influence biodiversity
net gain what what role do you play there well the
the overall message here is that that they
are completely independent schemes from one another they are
set up differently they are underpinned by different legislation
you've got the habs regs and the wildlife and
(34:45):
countryside act and the nurk act which which sit above
district licensing and then you've got the environment act and all of.
The subsequent secondary legislation that has recently
come out for bng and they they are
two separate entities there are two requirements for the
developer that they have to tick the boxes it's not to
pick one or the other you have to do both they're both mandatory um
(35:06):
species licensing and bng they function
very differently that the principles behind them are the same you you
create habitat under both of them but they are for different
purposes but the the underlying principles of
how they operate are actually quite quite different they
both have the same similar mitigation bng
hierarchy associated with them but but how compensation
(35:29):
is allocated under the district license we we
take all of
the all of the impacts from across a
region which regions are usually county based in our in
our system and we pull it and we take
all the compensation across the same spatial scale and we pull it and and we
make sure we are maintaining our gain ratios at that at that scale whereas under
(35:52):
bng you've got the the gain applied to the individual site you've got the compensation
that has to be directly linked to an individual site so there are fundamental
differences between BNG and district licensing that if we were to start.
Selling the bng value of our compensation sites which is which
is allowed provided additionality rules
are met we would have to get get around these these
(36:13):
differences in in how compensation is assigned
we'd have to get around differences in how our legal agreements are
set up so as sarah mentioned earlier we're underpinned by
a nurk act between the new conservation partnership ourselves and natural
england and that that regulates us and there
is no kind of equivalent under bng but we have
legal agreements with every landowner that
(36:35):
we have which is very similar to bng but the
the function of these agreements isn't the same we we have
them to the private agreements that that feed in that allow the habitat to feed
into the scheme that says the landowner will manage it in the same way in the
way that we need but but they are just private agreements they they have break
clauses in them they have get out clauses so the landowner can pay us back for
(36:57):
the ponds and we will go and spend that money somewhere else.
Under BNG, it needs a Section 106 agreement or a conservation covenant to do
the same role, which then gets placed onto a national register,
which then gets placed onto the local land registry.
A lot of the landowners we're talking to don't want to go down that route.
It restricts them much more than they're willing to go through.
(37:20):
We're getting a lot of pushback when we're discussing in conservation covenants
or section 106 with with with landowners but
that doesn't mean we can't integrate the two schemes like i said earlier the the
the use of district licensing compensation can or
creation of habitat can feed into species
licensing it can feed into bng the same so the same
piece of the same intervention can have two values and
(37:44):
we are we are working on ways of how that how we can get round the the the will
not get round but how we can marry up up the compensation assignment so that
the value of the habitat that a developer is buying from us can be used across the board for them.
We also feel that this will have huge benefits for nature conservation.
(38:04):
So if we're delivering BNG alongside our district licensing compensation,
we'll be able to fund bigger sites, we'll be able to fund more creation on these
sites, we'll be able to fund more diverse sites because we won't necessarily
just be thinking about new conservation.
We'll be able to look at fens, we'll be able to do, I don't know,
heathland restoration, That's a bad example because heathland's worth nothing
in the metric, but we'll be able to look at much more complex,
(38:27):
much more broad-scale conservation projects and fund these, which will have
huge, wider benefits for newts, for other species, for general biodiversity.
Okay, great. Thank you, thank you, Andy. So, I mean, you touched on it there.
What's the future for NatureSpace? So where do you go from where you are now?
(38:51):
So you've got 60 local authorities on board. I'd say you do 360 ponds created. What's next?
I don't know, Sarah, do you want to take this one?
We keep doing what we're doing. That's first and foremost.
We keep working with our local planning authorities and we keep doing what we're
doing and doing it well. We keep monitoring.
(39:12):
We keep building up this incredible amount of data that we've got.
And we are working with other local planning authorities. We're working with
infrastructure providers.
We have secured two licenses for Network Rail for two of their regions.
(39:32):
We're working on the final two regions for England at the moment,
which operates on a very similar basis to the district license,
except it operates outside of the planning system.
It's a license to allow Network Rail to carry on its responsibilities as a provider
of the nation's railways and to maintain and enhance the railway network,
(39:55):
but with access to a much easier licensing system than they would otherwise have access to.
So we're working with infrastructure providers and some very significant,
nationally significant infrastructure projects.
And, you know, our ears are open to whoever might be interested in exploring
(40:19):
a licensing opportunity like this.
BNG is something, as Andy said, that we're exploring. The integration of district
licensing with BNG has benefits,
potential benefits for developers and planning authorities in bringing those
two regimes together and having something that's complementary up to a point
(40:39):
and making sure that all of those rules around additionality, etc. are met.
But again, it's with a conservation focus and ethos that we want to use this
funding to deliver really better conservation outcomes.
Yeah, I'm really excited about where we're going with Nature Space and moving
(41:00):
beyond just, I say, just the Great Crested Newt project.
I've been involved with it for nearly 10 years. is it's a great scheme,
but the release of BNG recently has brought in so many more options for wider
ecological benefits that we can deliver through the similar types of programs.
(41:24):
So, for instance, we could be
using BNG habitat and focusing on
how that habitat is created and managed for for species
that wouldn't normally be thought about we we can look at
section 41 species for example that aren't usually mandated in
the mandated by local authorities
(41:44):
something that needs to be be considered particularly where large areas are
needed because it's just not financially viable for a developer but bng brings
that online and we i have or we have many many ideas of where we can take this
to to give benefits to nature conservation to nature recovery.
Much broader than than we are at the moment and bng
(42:06):
is is our link into that it is our way of making it affordable
for developers um so i'm i'm really excited to
the the future of nature space and and that's broadening out okay thank you
for that so in terms of i mean moving back to ecological consultants should
we say so i mean i've got this client obviously it's fictitious there we are
(42:27):
we're this client that you know we're advising them on the diff you know some
some of these different options.
They've got Great Crested Newts or potentially have Great Crested Newts within
their development themselves.
What considerations should we be considering within our profession and advice to our clients?
And how does Nature's Bay, the district licensing scheme, benefit the advice
(42:50):
we give to the developers?
Yeah, okay. So the developer, like we've said, has a choice.
The ecologist has a range of options to present to their developer clients on
how they might want to deal with their Great Crested Dukes and the impacts on Great Crested Dukes.
And the district licensing scheme offers a really fast and efficient route into
(43:14):
a license that can be dealt with at the same time as the planning application
is being determined by the local planning authority.
So, if the developer is keen to get on site quickly, for example,
doesn't want to wait for the survey season, doesn't want to or wants to cut
down post-planning permission delays.
(43:35):
Doesn't want to have to seek a separate license, then by entering the district
licensing scheme during the planning process means that all of the licensing
issues are dealt with in respect of Great Crescent News.
This doesn't solve any of the wider potential
ecological impacts all of the normal surveys
have to be carried out and impact assessment and
(43:57):
mitigation proposals whatever might need to be done for the wider biodiversity
or ecological impacts and the same with the the bng assessment that you know
that that still runs but in terms of newts which are often the the sticking
point They're the tricky species to deal with.
It often takes the longest, far longer than anything else.
(44:19):
They can enter the district licensing scheme during the planning process,
and they can find out exactly how much they're going to have to pay to deal
with newts before they even get planning permission.
They don't have to pay that whole amount before they've got the certainty of
having planning permission.
They enter, they pay a small fee, and then once they've got planning permission,
(44:42):
then then they can pay the full compensation payment.
So they've got certainty pre-planning. And then as soon as they got permission, then they can...
Be authorized under one of the district licenses. So it just cuts out loads
of uncertainty over timings and costs, long-term costs.
They see all of the costs up front. There aren't any hidden long-term,
(45:05):
oh, I've got to come back and do some more monitoring type costs in year eight.
They know everything up front. They can make a clear decision based on all the facts pre-planning.
All they have to do is come to NatureSpace, have an assessment,
and then they get some paperwork work to submit to the planning authority as
part of their planning application.
(45:26):
The planning authority, if they're granting planning permission,
they will apply one, two or three planning conditions, standard wording.
All the planning authorities have used them multiple times and they apply these
standard conditions to the planning permission.
And that's what creates the link between that planning permission and the future
(45:46):
use of the district license.
And once Once the developer has paid any remaining balance of their district
licensing fees, then they get authorized under the district license and they
can proceed as per any requirements.
Now, we've talked already about the potential for some on-site measures.
This district licensing scheme doesn't assume that everything is lost within
(46:11):
the red line development site boundary.
There are occasions where it would be better for newt conservation to have some
retention of important habitats, maybe some enhancement or creation of new habitat
where this would benefit the newt population.
And that's taken into account in the net impact assessment and ultimately how
(46:34):
much the developer has to pay into the scheme.
There is also some potential for mitigation, on-site mitigation measures to
try and reduce harm to great crested newts before the destructive works start.
And that's reserved for those really high risk situations where we expect that
(46:54):
there might be high, large numbers of newts impacted.
So that's going to be in areas that are identified through the modeling process
as high risk for great christed newts.
That's the red zones on our impact risk maps and where the development site
is very close or includes ponds within the development site boundary and highly
(47:16):
suitable habitat for great christed newts.
And in those cases, there might be some mitigation requirements.
They'll be reduced compared with standard mitigation requirements,
but there might be some just to reduce the really, really high risks in those sorts of situations.
And when we do the assessment, when the developer comes to NatureSpace,
(47:38):
having chosen the district licensing option, we undertake a bespoke individual assessment.
So our technical team is doing this day in, day out. And we have a very strict
set of protocols and procedures that they follow.
There's a quantified qualitative metric assessment of impacts on great crested newts.
And that determines the three elements of the mitigation hierarchy.
(48:03):
It's looking at whether the site should be avoided in whole or in part,
because there is potential for some development sites to be very,
very critical for the nuked population.
So for example, if a development site would result in a loss of range for the
species, then that's really serious.
And we would potentially have to, you know, look at how to reduce or avoid those
(48:28):
impacts so that we can avoid impacts at that scale.
We're also looking at how to minimize the impacts on newts using mitigation
in high-risk situations.
And then the metric also determines the proportionate compensation fee that
that development should pay, taking into account the specific impacts,
(48:49):
the types and amounts of habitat.
Not just ponds, but terrestrial habitats, how close those habitats are to ponds,
how well connected they are across the landscape and what
the impacts are so it's a proportionate qualitative
assessment of what the cost for compensating
for those impacts should be okay so you
(49:09):
then gets that paperwork they then decide whether
they want to use a district license and in most cases people do
they submit the paperwork to the planning authority and the
planning authority has then got that reassurance of
a process having been followed that's been been
regulated by natural england and they can rely on that
paperwork to say yes in this case the district
(49:30):
license is available for this development site that that
metric assessment also defines the compensation
requirement that that that we would have to do for that
that for that impact the impact that's being delivered by
that development so it would tell us the number of ponds
that we would need to compensate to meet the the occupancy and
the gain multipliers or ratios that
(49:52):
we are we are bound by and the area of
terrestrial habitat that we need to be delivered to so when i say terrestrial
habitat delivered that is uplifting habitat into a suitable condition for great
christian use when it wasn't before that that would be needed needed to be delivered
to compensate for the impact from that from that development site okay Okay.
(50:16):
Just a couple of questions coming from this. So in terms of,
I'll come back to fees in a second, but obviously compensation,
off-site, habitat creation, where's this land come from? Where's this land identified?
Well, we've got a spatial conservation strategy that's part of the license application
that goes to Natural England.
(50:36):
We have a series of strategic opportunity areas that are identified across the
landscape for every region.
So this is not a national compensation scheme. This is a regionally based spatial
conservation strategy for usually
the county and the planning authorities within a particular county.
(50:58):
So there's that broad scale spatial assessment that's done largely based on
the modelled outputs, but also taking into account other factors in the landscape
like barriers and that kind of thing.
But on an individual site basis, the Nuke Conservation Partnership are looking
at using that spatial conservation strategy, but they're also looking for very specific sites.
(51:22):
They're looking for sites where they can deliver high quality habitats,
clean water, and have sites that are going to contribute to that nuke population.
Okay, so they're actively looking for sites to bring on board then?
Working with a whole variety of landowners yeah
so they're out talking to landowners on a daily basis they're looking
(51:45):
they're talking to a huge range they've got
sites the owned by the mod right down to hobby farms so quite a forestry commission
wildlife trusts we we have compensation on their sites as well but council land
council council and anywhere that falls within the criteria that that they have
(52:05):
for a suitable delivery site.
So it needs to be able, yeah, okay, you need to be able to dig a pond and it will hold water.
That's sort of fundamental for pond creation.
But it should be being fed by clean water.
So we want to reduce arable runoff into it. We want to not have it linked to
a stream that might have fish in it, for example.
(52:25):
We, they're looking for the existing suitability of the terrestrial landscape,
but beyond that, they're looking for how easily is that site going to get colonized
by great crested newts? Is it completely isolated?
Is there actually no chance that putting a pond where, or putting a series of
ponds in terrestrial habitat is actually going to benefit the species?
Issues and if they don't think that we have models actually that show the connectivity
(52:48):
across the landscape and if this area is not going to be linked in to where
Great Crested Newts are then there's no point in building there so there's a
huge checklist that they go through to check that the site is suitable before
they'll sign an agreement with the landowner.
That's probably an entirely new podcast from the New Conservation Partnership.
Yeah, we'll have a look at that, we'll probably bring it on board later on yeah, thank you for that.
(53:11):
Going back to fees, so in terms of Okay, so when does the developer,
you know, first of all, I'm assuming there's a couple of payment plans or stages.
So initially when they, because you say everything's up front,
they know all the costs, so then they can make an informed decision.
So at what stage is the first payment required and what's that for?
(53:34):
And then any supplementary payments as well?
Yeah, so the first stage payment is required pre-planning.
But for many cases now, we offer an upfront free upfront assessment service
so that people can see before they paid anything at all,
what the second stage fee would be so they can see the fees in their entirety
(53:58):
before they pay anything at all.
But in order to use the district licensing scheme as evidence for the planning
application, then the first stage fee does need to have been paid because that locks in the developer,
their commitment to the district licensing scheme.
And it's a full assessment at that point to present to the planning authority.
(54:21):
Some cases are just a one-off fee, just a single one-stage fee only.
And that's that's reserved for the really low
impact situations so householders infill
development genuinely low impact development that's having you know potential
impacts on newts and newt might turn up during the course of works it's a bit
(54:46):
of an insurance policy in some cases but it's it's in terms of population level
impacts it's it's going to be low impact type activities limited.
Everything else gets a full bespoke assessment, and it's those cases that are
split between a stage one fee that's paid pre-planning in order to get that
assessment done, get the report to submit to the council.
(55:08):
But then the remaining fee, the second stage fee that we call it,
is payable after planning permission has been granted.
So people aren't having to pay large sums of money before they know if they've
even got planning permission.
In all cases, all of the fees, whether it's a single stage fee only or it's
(55:30):
a split stage one and stage two.
40% of the money goes straight to the New Conservation Partnership for habitat
creation and the Long-Term Management Fund, where they put aside money,
secured money for the long-term management of all the habitats that have been created.
So that happens with all of those fees.
(55:50):
And then on top of that, we send about another 20-25% to the New Conservation
Partnership for monitoring.
And then there's a whole load of money spent on supporting local planning authorities,
data costs, remodeling costs, reporting costs, renewal costs, etc.
(56:11):
But those fees are split across all of the payments that we receive from developers.
So it's not that the first stage payment is just paying for a piece of paper.
It's also contributing to the scheme because in this way, we can make sure there
is that continuous flow of funding for the new conservation partnership to start
(56:33):
to go out before a developer has fully entered the scheme.
Team start to go out and be looking for those habitats new habitat opportunities
in the places where development is likely to need it great yeah thank you for
that that's that's really clear and yeah so so about 35 percent goes to you
know operational activities then really you know.
(56:54):
Roughly speaking broadly yeah yeah great i say you've been very generous with
both with your time there so i'm going to draw today's podcast to a close but
i just wanted to say Sarah Garrett,
Andy Buxton thank you for joining me today on the Ecology
Academy podcast Thank you Richard If you
(57:15):
enjoy our show and want to help then please click on the subscribe button and
rate us on your favourite podcast player as that's how you can inspire ecologists
in the making help retain great talent and provide insights of our industry
to a much wider audience of why ecology really does matter Thank you,
And remember Remember, learning is a lifelong.
(57:38):
Music.
I'm Richard Dodd and you're listening to the Ecology Academy podcast.
This is a show where we get to talk and learn about all things ecological,
including interviews with top ecologists, both employers and employees,
those working with ecologists, and also aspiring and inspiring career-seeking
individuals setting out to make a difference.
(00:21):
The show aims to provide you with insights, advice and inspiration to help you
succeed and excel as an effective ecologist and to make a real difference to
our natural environment.
Joining me today on the Ecology Academy podcast, we have Sarah Garrett,
Chief Operations Officer and Andy Buxton, Head of Science from NatureSpace.
(00:43):
So good morning to you both. Good morning, Richard.
Excellent. Right. So we're going to jump straight into it. So,
Sarah, please do tell me a little bit about yourself and also before we go into
NatureSpace itself, itself, just about your background in terms of where you
got to in terms of nature space today. Thanks, Richard.
So yeah, I'm Chief Operations Officer at Nature Space.
(01:05):
I've been working with nature space for the last six years, seven years,
developing a strategic licensing approach, which we're going to talk about a little bit more.
And I suppose I got into this through protected species licensing work,
working in local planning authorities, a planning ecologist,
(01:25):
and just a general interest in all things European protected species.
Excellent. Great. And Andy? So yeah, I'm Head of Science at NatureSpace.
I've been involved with the scheme since before it was launched in various guises.
So originally as an advisor and then did a lot of the habitat creation and statistical
modelling that underpinned the scheme before my current role.
(01:48):
Before that, my PhD is from the University of Kent looking at environmental
DNA error rates, So survey error rates, detection probabilities,
false positives, false negatives, things like that, and operationalizing eDNA as a survey method.
Before that, I was a consultant actually sitting at a desk in the building that
you're currently sitting in, Richard, above where you're sitting right now.
(02:11):
So that was five years as a standard commercial ecologist for an engineering company.
Well, we're looking after the building. Don't worry. It's a lovely building.
I'd say at the moment we can hear the water flowing underneath the mill building,
so it got a bit scary last week.
Yeah, we're still, the floor was still dry, so that's good.
(02:32):
It wasn't one year I was there. Oh, right. Okay. Thanks for that.
Something to look out for.
Okay, so in terms of then NatureSpace, let's look at the scheme itself and your company.
So Sarah, just tell us a little bit about NatureSpace, why it was set up and what you do.
So NatureSpace came about because we, Tom Chiu and I were having conversations with the NGOs,
(02:56):
particularly amphibian and reptile conservation trust
and the freshwater habitats trust about seven
or eight years ago and it was at the time where there
was a lot of interest from government into a
better regulation and the red tape agenda and how
protected species were being dealt with in the licensing regime particularly
(03:18):
great crested newts and there was also a growing awareness in the environmental
sector that perhaps traditional approaches to new mitigation on development sites wasn't working,
wasn't having the desired outcomes.
And at the time, Natural England had been looking at developing new licensing
(03:38):
policies as a way of broadening the remits of licensing and broadening what
could be allowed under under standard licensing programs.
And the idea of a more strategic approach to licensing was starting to become more embedded.
Natural England had started with a pilot in Woking and we came up with an idea
(04:00):
with a group of local planning authorities across the South Midlands to pilot
another approach to district licensing.
And that's where Nature Space was born.
Okay, so these pilot studies, what year were these started then?
So the NatureSpace pilot started in 2018, February 2018, so just over six years
(04:22):
ago, and then it grew from there.
So now we're working with more than 60 planning authorities across quite a large
part of England, and the pilot has become embedded as a district licensing approach.
In the early days, it was very much a, let's see if this works.
And in the meantime, time natural england have also developed their
(04:43):
own approach to district level licensing how
you do strategic licensing like this
alongside or shortly after
the planning system okay so in terms of i suppose the i mean the problem or
you were trying to solve then in terms of for i say different different stakeholders
aren't there really so it's the it's the developers you know the maybe Maybe
(05:07):
also landowners as well. There's the local planning authority.
And of course, you know, obviously this is an ecological podcast,
so maybe ecological consultants.
So in terms of solving a problem for, and of course, newts, great restitutes.
Okay, so in terms of, I mean, it's impressive now that 60 local authorities
(05:29):
are actually on board now.
But going back to the root of the, I suppose, a problem for maybe developers,
landowners, local authorities, and of course, newts themselves.
So, I mean, how has nature space, you know, helped each of these or may,
you know, each of these, you know, address a certain problem that they have?
(05:49):
So let's look at it from, I mean, the local authority point of view.
So how do you take it from being a pilot study to spreading it to these 60 plus
local authorities? Thank you for your time, and I'll see you in the next video.
Well, yeah, the very first license was granted for two years to the first seven
planning authorities. So that was the pilot.
And then since then, with the proof of concept, it's working,
(06:10):
it's having demonstrable outcomes, and I'll invite Andy to talk some more about that in a minute.
More and more local planning authorities wanted to get on board with the scheme.
I think the reasons for that were the scheme was designed primarily as a conservation
scheme, so it had new conservation at its heart as a fundamental driving principle.
(06:31):
This has to lead to better outcomes for newts.
But also it had to work for developers because otherwise they will never pay into the scheme.
They would never pay if it didn't work for them. They have other options. They would use those.
And it had to work for planning authorities because the idea is that this is
(06:52):
integrated within the planning system so you can achieve efficiencies of time
and avoid delays and avoid conflicts between what might be allowed in the planning
system and what's subsequently allowed in the licensing system.
So it was designed to iron out all of those crinkles in traditional approaches
to standard litigation, development litigation.
(07:16):
So we had to satisfy all of those requirements.
We had to design a scheme to deliver better conservation outcomes.
Outcomes, and now five years, six years on, we're in a place where we've got
lots of data and we can really start to look at what those outcomes are,
but it also had to work for the other parties as well.
Yeah. In terms of, I said, let's look, so how did the local authorities gain then?
(07:41):
So what problem are you solving for them?
How does it work in terms of them easing their burden, shall we say?
Well, I think when there's a standard approach to survey and impact assessment,
mitigation and on-site compensation,
the local planning authorities are having to deal with that decision-making
(08:01):
on their own and independently.
With Natural England's future licensing decision being completely separated
from that part of the process.
So you've got the local planning authority weighing up whether or not a proposal,
a development proposal is going to impact on newts and whether those impacts
can be dealt with properly and whether the planning authority's decision meets
(08:24):
the legal requirements set out in the habitats regulations,
regulations whether it's meeting their legal requirements to
have regard to the requirements of the habitats directive for
example and they're having to make that decision on their own they're having
to decide whether a license is likely to be granted by natural england at some
future date what this scheme does for them apart from solving unfortunate delays
(08:49):
in having to wait for survey data,
is giving them certainty, giving the planners certainty that a license can be
granted because license has already been granted.
So they've got that certainty of position in their decision making that if a
scheme, if a development proposal can use a district license,
and we have to assess that on a case by case basis.
(09:12):
But if a development scheme is coming to a local planning authority and saying,
here's my certificate, I can use this district licence, then the local planning
authority has got that confidence that all of their legal requirements are also met.
Yeah, so you're taking away that, as you say, that uncertainty then in terms
of, you know, will Natural England grant this licence application?
(09:33):
So satisfying the three tests then, so you're taking on that burden on their
behalf, is that correct?
Well, kind of. We're taking on that burden through Natural
England as the the licensing regulator they continue
to act in that role natural england regulates
all of the licenses that granted whether that's a district license
or a standard license but what
(09:55):
we're doing is bringing forward natural england's decision making
getting the licensing scheme in place before the local planning authorities
are having to make their decisions right okay so you mentioned previously about
obviously the data you know it's been six years now you You collect that data
in and obviously better outcomes for Greg Reston-Newton.
(10:16):
So it may be bringing Andy now
in terms of the data then that's been collated over the past six years.
So how does this feature?
So why is it important to collect the data and what are you doing with it?
Well, first of all, this, as Sarah said earlier, is a conservation outcome-focused scheme.
(10:37):
The whole reason for doing this is to give better outcomes for great crested
newts than the standard mitigation licensing that we have been using for the past 30 years or so.
So we need to be able to demonstrate that this is in the best interest of great crested newts.
So we have a very, very stringent and extensive monitoring and evaluation program that sits alongside it.
(10:59):
So we're monitoring not just the compensation ponds that our partners put in the ground,
but we are looking at the levels of occupancy and habitat suitability in the
wider landscape to make sure that the work that we're doing exceeds the suitability
as a general rule or on the level with the wider landscape.
(11:24):
So we have we're very very
expensive and and
full-on monitoring program we conduct
every year so every pond that we we have or our partners have created or restored
is monitored with with occupancy assessments so usually edna for the first five
(11:46):
years and then the the number of visits cuts down but we're still going to be
monitoring for the full time that they're secured secured.
We use extended HSI, so habitat suitability index, surveys across all of these
ponds, so we're visiting them very frequently to make sure that they are meeting
the requirements of the standards that the habitat that we create is.
(12:08):
It is set within our license.
On top of that, we were doing population assessments to make sure that we are
not just putting in the ground the odd occupied pond here and there.
The ponds that we are creating are forming a core section of metapopulations
so that they are the real drivers for population in the locations which they're situated.
(12:31):
That they're the ones that can be seeding in
time will be the ones that are seeding further expansion of
the population we we link all of
our assessment for of the regional scale to to the favourable conservation status
metrics so we evaluating before we get the license what the current status of
great crevasted newts is based on on wider surveys for for range distribution
(12:56):
distribution, population,
habitat, and prospects as well.
So how they're likely to be, the trajectory of the species in the area.
And then we are updating that regularly post works.
So yeah, very intensive evaluation, both pre and during the scheme running.
(13:17):
Yeah. And in terms of that final evaluation then, you've got this data.
Do you publish this at all in terms of any research papers going on at the moment?
So, we are, as Sarah mentioned earlier, just past the six-year mark.
So, we're operating on a five-year cycle. So, we've about a year ago came to
(13:38):
the end of our first five-year evaluation cycle where we have been doing a deeper dive into the data.
I'm sure you appreciate the lead-in times with analysis and getting things published,
but we have a couple of things in the works that should be coming out relatively soon.
We are going to be publishing the data, but academic timeframes mean that it's
(14:00):
not out yet. But a lot of this evaluation is based on, in fact,
the whole scheme is based around predictive modelling.
So we have species distribution modelling at the core of it,
which gives us our lovely five-coloured risk zone map.
So white, green, amber, red and black, which firstly allows the impact assessment
to look at the likely presence of great crested newts for a development site.
(14:24):
But we can also build on that with evaluation. So one of the big pieces of work
that I've been doing recently, and I presented on it at the Herp Workers' Meeting
a month or so ago, and I think this will probably have gone out by the time
I'm presenting it to SAIM next week.
One thing that you can do with the species distribution modelling that we use
is you can firstly use it to predict where newts are now.
(14:46):
So you look at the landscape variables and where you've got data,
and you can identify the suitability of every single point across the landscape
on whatever scale you're looking.
We used about a 25-metre grid across the whole of the region,
every region that we're working on.
So you can then change the input variables with the work that we've done.
(15:10):
So where ponds have been lost, where ponds have been created,
where habitat has been – or the habitat changes through development or the habitat
changes through terrestrial improvements that our partners have created.
And you can look at the overall suitability
of the landscape just considering the work that you've been doing and this
is what i'm going to one of the papers that we've we've been pulling together
(15:31):
at the moment and we're showing even after five years a
statistically significant increase in suitability across the landscape based
on the based on the district licensing scheme which is fantastic and i was not
thinking it would be that i don't didn't think we would get a statistically
significant output on the lands on the scale that we're talking so for the the
So the original area we launched in was about 4,500 kilometres squared.
(15:54):
On that scale, a statistically significant change over just five years is huge.
It's fantastic to see for the species.
And you mentioned about partners there. So who do you, I mean,
I don't know if it may be a question to Sarah, I don't know,
but in terms of partners, partnerships.
How were those formed and who were you partnering with? other than local authorities, you know.
(16:20):
So we work very closely with Amphibian and Rectile Conservation Trust and the
Freshwater Habitats Trust.
And we have done throughout the development and operation of the district licensing scheme.
But our closest partner now is the Newt Conservation Partnership,
which, like Nature Space, was a new entity set up specifically to deliver the scheme.
(16:42):
So all of the staff at the Newt Conservation Partnership are experts in freshwater
or amphibian ecology and conservation.
They're all seconded from either FHT or Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust.
And their entire reason to be is to deliver the conservation outcomes of this scheme.
So they're out on the ground working with landowners and securing habitats,
(17:07):
setting management plans, creating the habitats and then monitoring them and
managing them thereafter for the next at least 25 years. So they're our main partners.
We developed the original species distribution models with DICE,
who'd been really progressing the use of that kind of advanced modelling technique for this purpose.
(17:35):
DICE is the Daryl Institute for Conservation and Ecology at the University of
Kent. Thank you. Thanks, Andy.
So they've been heavily involved in the development and design of the modelling
inputs to the scheme, which underpin it because Great Crested Newts are particularly
suited to this kind of strategic approach.
(17:55):
Their habitat requirements, habitat suitability can be modelled,
and you can design a spatial
conservation strategy that helps you decide
where the good places are across the landscape
to deliver those improvements in conservation
status so range distribution within
(18:16):
the range increases in habitats and increases in populations and improvements
to prospect okay okay thank you so i'm going to just change a little questioning
in terms of now okay if i was a if i was a developer so you know i'm submitting
a planning application to to a local authority.
(18:37):
NatureSpace is one that, you know, operates within that local authority themselves.
How, well, what's the process of, A, the developer knowing about the scheme?
So where do they get their information from?
Where is it, you know, where did they come from?
And I suppose let's run through a little process of, okay, now I've identified
NatureSpace as an option.
(18:59):
Why would I go with NatureSpace? So let's go back to that first question then.
And so how does a developer find out about the scheme itself?
So the local planning authorities who have this option available.
They tend to have some information on their websites.
And we have a team of district licensing officers who are working,
(19:20):
whose job is to support local planning authorities in identifying where impacts
on nukes might arise through proposed development, development planning applications.
And giving those developers and the planners the full suite of options available.
So where newts might be impacted by a proposed development, what are the options for that developer?
(19:44):
So district licensing is one of several licensing options.
The developer can choose to go out and survey, do their own surveys,
wait for the survey season,
go out and use that traditional standard approach to ascertaining whether newts
are likely to be on or around the development site and therefore whether they're
likely to be impacted by whatever type of development is proposed there. They could do that.
(20:09):
And if they find they've got great creative nukes, then they've got licensing options.
They might be suited for the low impact class license.
They might wish to go down the standard licensing route or they can use the district license.
Now, the district license is designed, as we've said already,
to present benefits to developers.
They don't have to wait for the survey season. They don't have to go and do those new surveys.
(20:33):
They can just enter at any point in the year. But at any point during that planning
application process, the developer
can opt into the district licensing scheme as one of their options.
So they find out about it through the planning officer or going on to the planning
authority's website and just seeing that suite of options that's available to them.
(20:53):
Okay. So, I mean, looking at it from, I suppose, an ecologist's and as an ecological
consultant's point of view.
Now, probably an ecological consultant is being engaging with their clients
prior to anything going into the local authority.
So maybe the first knowledge of this scheme or different schemes,
(21:17):
should we say, was probably going to be presented by an ecological consultant
rather than local authority. Is that fair?
Yeah, that's true, actually. And so we do try hard to reach out to ecological consultants.
And we work with the ecologists in local planning authorities as well, where they are there.
And we're trying to get the message out. And a lot, to be honest,
(21:41):
is spread by word of mouth, where people have used,
ecologists have used the scheme before and want to use it again because of the
benefits that the scheme delivers. livers.
So there's that element. The ecologists already know about it.
We've got information on our website.
We try and get information out there to share with the wider world.
(22:03):
For example, the monitoring report, which I'm sure we'll loop back to in a bit,
that the New Conservation Partnership have just published.
So getting the information to the ecologists, not just on the benefits for developers,
but the conservation outcomes of the scheme is also really important.
Okay. Yeah, I think that's it in terms of, I suppose, you know,
if we want, if you say we, you know, if we obviously we all want successful
(22:26):
outcomes for Great Western Utes, that's the ultimate aim for,
you know, obviously Nature Space,
for ecological consultants and, you know, local authorities and a lot of people,
you know, so it's a lot of different interested bodies there.
In terms of, I suppose, you know, breaking that barrier,
you know, if an ecological consultant is going to sell or advise their clients
(22:48):
on a particular licensing route or scheme,
that enables them to, because the developer just wants to get their project
finished, you know, over the line, completed.
As you say, it may be time sensitive, more than likely it is.
There's certainly going to be a budget associated with their proposal as well.
I suppose, let's look at it from an ecological consultant's point of view.
(23:13):
How are you, I say, raising awareness to those local, those ecologists?
And also, I mean, here we go. How would you enable us or advise us to maybe
promote the scheme over and above others, you know, and where's the balance to be had?
Yeah, so I think, you know, we're always looking for ways to talk to ecological
(23:37):
consultants and get the message out there about what the scheme can deliver
for their clients, for your clients, and the benefits to,
well, all the benefits that we've already talked about.
So we're trying to get better at that messaging and communications.
And it's a tricky balance, isn't it?
Because you can spend a lot of time on social media and people need information.
(24:04):
So getting that information out to people is always really important.
And we do offer training courses.
People can come to us for bespoke sessions and the team will go along and explain
to them about how the scheme works, benefits for clients.
So that can sometimes help within individual consultancies.
(24:27):
And like i say trying to really spread the word about
the the outcomes and now we've got
demonstrable outcomes and publications coming out
then that's then that's information that we can share with
people yeah i mean that's that's important in terms
of i suppose that you know if we look at uh you know the the traits
behaviors of agricultural consultants you know that they're technically minded in
(24:48):
terms of them you know they you know has probably got high ethical value
you know ethics in terms of okay oh am i only going
to promote something if it actually does work and for the benefit of
the newts that's that's their main area you mentioned about
okay yeah coming back demonstrable results monitoring
reports so you know
how crucial and what what is involved within these monitoring reports that may
(25:13):
enable like an ecological consultant then to you know have confidence within
the the scheme itself so the monitoring report that has just been published
by our partners, the Newt Conservation Partnership,
has broken down all of the pond creation that they've been doing over the past
five years since the original scheme launched and the seven LPAs.
(25:34):
And then they've created or restored over that nearly six-year period,
because this was the data and it's up until December 23, nearly 360 ponds have been delivered.
And then they also break down the amount of terrestrial habitat that has been created created.
As compensation for the scheme.
(25:58):
We're also, within this report, looking at the colonisation of the ponds that
they're creating because it is a policy not to seed the ponds that we're creating with newts.
We don't want to be transporting them around the country. We don't want to be transferring disease.
So we have a very strong policy of natural colonisation for all the habitat we're creating.
So it is presenting the occupancy rates
(26:19):
and bear in mind that the vast majority of
the ponds that we do is all they do is pond creation so they're
very very young ponds we're already showing through that a off
the top of my head 42 percent pond occupancy rate and most
of these ponds are within one or two years of age which is
very very high a few when when i
have looked at the evaluation it just did the oldest set of
(26:40):
of lpas the pond occupancy rate
is considerably higher than that and colonization
is moving it continues up until at
least year four or five with an upward trend so
we're probably not seeing our
full occupancy rate of the compensation ponds yet so
that that isn't yet reflected in the monitoring reports because we're not at
(27:03):
that stage it's still a very young scheme in the lifespan of an individual newt
what else is in the monitoring report so yeah it basically breaks down the compensation
that's been provided and the the occupancy and hsi data that has been collected
over the years alongside it.
And they do touch on their levels of impact to make sure that they're presenting
that we are well ahead of our legal requirements in terms of bond creation compared
(27:28):
to the impacts, the gain multipliers that we have to apply there as well.
I think it's the scale that the delivery is at as well.
And, you know, we're not creating thousands of ponds,
but we are creating hundreds of ponds that are really well designed in good
places to allow new populations to strengthen and expand and be reconnected
(27:52):
across the landscape with all the benefits that that brings,
not just for newts, but for the wider biodiversity as well.
And that's considerably more than has been possible to achieve through standard
approaches to licensing.
And whilst we've all got examples of where individual site-based approaches
(28:13):
have worked and can work.
Equally, there are many, many more examples of where it just simply hasn't worked
for one reason or another.
It's, you know, whether it's a lack of expertise that the developer has enlisted
to help with habitat creation on the development site, whether it's just the
(28:33):
type of development and newt conservation,
newt survival just don't usually match. match.
The houses get occupied and the newts disappear, even if you do manage to retain
some decent habitat on site.
And then all of the other long-term issues with actually looking after newt habitat for newts.
(28:57):
And quite often that monitoring and management just doesn't get done on development sites.
There are conflicting management requirements requirements and the nukes lose
out long-term and survival of the population is.
By no means certain and in many cases the population
just goes extinct so what we're doing here is
(29:18):
completely different that doesn't mean there isn't a
place for on-site compensation and on-site mitigation in certain circumstances
that's that's part of this scheme as well but it is in certain circumstances
where there are clear benefits to the new population and then proper proper
long-term management and monitoring is secured through the planning process.
(29:41):
But mostly what we're doing is delivering off-site compensation,
really high quality habitats delivered by experts in good places that are secured for the future.
And there is at least 25 years of management and monitoring that is secured
through a legal agreement with Natural England.
And going back to one of your earlier questions, Richard, one
(30:03):
of the benefits for planning authorities is that they're not part they
have no long-term responsibility for
that long-term management and monitoring we do
and the new conservation partnership do and natural england
regulates and will hold us to account to
that but the developers don't have any long-term responsibilities either we
(30:24):
take that all away so no matter what happens on the development site when the
developers built houses and moved on and is thinking about the next site it
doesn't matter because all of the compensation requirements have been dealt
with, bio's properly secured.
There's one exception to that, and that is under the Nature Space District licensing
(30:46):
scheme, we can consider on-site enhancements or creation of habitat,
provided it is secured by an HMMP that has...
Very stringent long-term suitability for
new requirements associated with it and then the developer would
would maintain a little bit but of a requirement
to report to us on on the long-term suitability and we would actually go out
(31:09):
and compliance check most of those yeah so there is there is that element that
we can and we do consider what is happening on a development site to reduce
an impact assessment, reduce the overall impact.
But in those circumstances, the developer does need to take on a little bit
(31:30):
of long-term responsibility.
Yeah. Okay, so there is, yeah, so there's part of that, the on-site enhancements,
and you mentioned HMP, so that's Habitat Management Plan, is that correct?
Habitat Management and Monitoring Plan. Monitoring Plan as well,
okay, and followed by the Compliance Jack.
So I think this is what, you know, as maybe a practicing ecologist then,
And so what reassures me is it gives you, as you mentioned, the expertise,
(31:54):
the knowledge. It's a science-led approach.
You've got that consistency as well.
And that collaborative approach, you've got those experts in,
say, from the Nuke partnership and yourselves.
And obviously, you know, it does benefit multiple stakeholders.
As you mentioned, the developers can sort of...
(32:15):
You know it benefits them yeah in a lot of
ways but i think in overall it benefits
great crested newts and i think i think i can
see that you know with that that from this approach i'd expand
on that it benefits a huge variety of things on top of
great crested newts pond creation landscape is it is
key to freshwater conservation that freshwater habitats
(32:36):
trust our partners will bang on about this at length but
creating fresh clean water freshwater
ponds within within the farmed
environment within within the wider landscape has a
much much bigger impact on overall biodiversity than
than river restoration or other
other types of freshwater conservation or planting a piece of woodland per
(32:58):
unit area so this this scheme
is focused on great crested newts is funded by
great crested newts but we're having a measurable wider benefit
to the landscape as well i was at ponds earlier this week i was
running the new conservation partnerships survey survey training actually and
they took us to this this very big site
in the forest of dean that they'd been working on for the last few
(33:20):
years and the number of
toads that are using that pond which is a priority species they're declining
across the country where we're actually monstrously worried about toads was
fantastic to see it's been 10 years since i've seen that many toads in one location
so we're having we're having massive benefits on other amphibians this site
that we were at, the local.
(33:41):
Dragonfly recorder had been out to, and it is now their favourite site in the Forest of Dean.
So we're having huge benefits beyond just Great Crested Newts.
This scheme is designed for wider biodiversity, funded through Great Crested
Newts, but Great Crested Newts are key.
We have to demonstrate that we are benefiting them, but there is so much else going on.
(34:03):
Perhaps we can have a conversation about the wider benefits. Now, obviously,
biodiversity net gain for instance so so as
this come into as mandatory within england so i
mean how does it come how does nature space
so it complements you know biodiversity net gain
so is there is a room for you know
(34:23):
this district licensing scheme and how does
it you know impact upon or influence biodiversity
net gain what what role do you play there well the
the overall message here is that that they
are completely independent schemes from one another they are
set up differently they are underpinned by different legislation
you've got the habs regs and the wildlife and
(34:45):
countryside act and the nurk act which which sit above
district licensing and then you've got the environment act and all of.
The subsequent secondary legislation that has recently
come out for bng and they they are
two separate entities there are two requirements for the
developer that they have to tick the boxes it's not to
pick one or the other you have to do both they're both mandatory um
(35:06):
species licensing and bng they function
very differently that the principles behind them are the same you you
create habitat under both of them but they are for different
purposes but the the underlying principles of
how they operate are actually quite quite different they
both have the same similar mitigation bng
hierarchy associated with them but but how compensation
(35:29):
is allocated under the district license we we
take all of
the all of the impacts from across a
region which regions are usually county based in our in
our system and we pull it and we take
all the compensation across the same spatial scale and we pull it and and we
make sure we are maintaining our gain ratios at that at that scale whereas under
(35:52):
bng you've got the the gain applied to the individual site you've got the compensation
that has to be directly linked to an individual site so there are fundamental
differences between BNG and district licensing that if we were to start.
Selling the bng value of our compensation sites which is which
is allowed provided additionality rules
are met we would have to get get around these these
(36:13):
differences in in how compensation is assigned
we'd have to get around differences in how our legal agreements are
set up so as sarah mentioned earlier we're underpinned by
a nurk act between the new conservation partnership ourselves and natural
england and that that regulates us and there
is no kind of equivalent under bng but we have
legal agreements with every landowner that
(36:35):
we have which is very similar to bng but the
the function of these agreements isn't the same we we have
them to the private agreements that that feed in that allow the habitat to feed
into the scheme that says the landowner will manage it in the same way in the
way that we need but but they are just private agreements they they have break
clauses in them they have get out clauses so the landowner can pay us back for
(36:57):
the ponds and we will go and spend that money somewhere else.
Under BNG, it needs a Section 106 agreement or a conservation covenant to do
the same role, which then gets placed onto a national register,
which then gets placed onto the local land registry.
A lot of the landowners we're talking to don't want to go down that route.
It restricts them much more than they're willing to go through.
(37:20):
We're getting a lot of pushback when we're discussing in conservation covenants
or section 106 with with with landowners but
that doesn't mean we can't integrate the two schemes like i said earlier the the
the use of district licensing compensation can or
creation of habitat can feed into species
licensing it can feed into bng the same so the same
piece of the same intervention can have two values and
(37:44):
we are we are working on ways of how that how we can get round the the the will
not get round but how we can marry up up the compensation assignment so that
the value of the habitat that a developer is buying from us can be used across the board for them.
We also feel that this will have huge benefits for nature conservation.
(38:04):
So if we're delivering BNG alongside our district licensing compensation,
we'll be able to fund bigger sites, we'll be able to fund more creation on these
sites, we'll be able to fund more diverse sites because we won't necessarily
just be thinking about new conservation.
We'll be able to look at fens, we'll be able to do, I don't know,
heathland restoration, That's a bad example because heathland's worth nothing
in the metric, but we'll be able to look at much more complex,
(38:27):
much more broad-scale conservation projects and fund these, which will have
huge, wider benefits for newts, for other species, for general biodiversity.
Okay, great. Thank you, thank you, Andy. So, I mean, you touched on it there.
What's the future for NatureSpace? So where do you go from where you are now?
(38:51):
So you've got 60 local authorities on board. I'd say you do 360 ponds created. What's next?
I don't know, Sarah, do you want to take this one?
We keep doing what we're doing. That's first and foremost.
We keep working with our local planning authorities and we keep doing what we're
doing and doing it well. We keep monitoring.
(39:12):
We keep building up this incredible amount of data that we've got.
And we are working with other local planning authorities. We're working with
infrastructure providers.
We have secured two licenses for Network Rail for two of their regions.
(39:32):
We're working on the final two regions for England at the moment,
which operates on a very similar basis to the district license,
except it operates outside of the planning system.
It's a license to allow Network Rail to carry on its responsibilities as a provider
of the nation's railways and to maintain and enhance the railway network,
(39:55):
but with access to a much easier licensing system than they would otherwise have access to.
So we're working with infrastructure providers and some very significant,
nationally significant infrastructure projects.
And, you know, our ears are open to whoever might be interested in exploring
(40:19):
a licensing opportunity like this.
BNG is something, as Andy said, that we're exploring. The integration of district
licensing with BNG has benefits,
potential benefits for developers and planning authorities in bringing those
two regimes together and having something that's complementary up to a point
(40:39):
and making sure that all of those rules around additionality, etc. are met.
But again, it's with a conservation focus and ethos that we want to use this
funding to deliver really better conservation outcomes.
Yeah, I'm really excited about where we're going with Nature Space and moving
(41:00):
beyond just, I say, just the Great Crested Newt project.
I've been involved with it for nearly 10 years. is it's a great scheme,
but the release of BNG recently has brought in so many more options for wider
ecological benefits that we can deliver through the similar types of programs.
(41:24):
So, for instance, we could be
using BNG habitat and focusing on
how that habitat is created and managed for for species
that wouldn't normally be thought about we we can look at
section 41 species for example that aren't usually mandated in
the mandated by local authorities
(41:44):
something that needs to be be considered particularly where large areas are
needed because it's just not financially viable for a developer but bng brings
that online and we i have or we have many many ideas of where we can take this
to to give benefits to nature conservation to nature recovery.
Much broader than than we are at the moment and bng
(42:06):
is is our link into that it is our way of making it affordable
for developers um so i'm i'm really excited to
the the future of nature space and and that's broadening out okay thank you
for that so in terms of i mean moving back to ecological consultants should
we say so i mean i've got this client obviously it's fictitious there we are
(42:27):
we're this client that you know we're advising them on the diff you know some
some of these different options.
They've got Great Crested Newts or potentially have Great Crested Newts within
their development themselves.
What considerations should we be considering within our profession and advice to our clients?
And how does Nature's Bay, the district licensing scheme, benefit the advice
(42:50):
we give to the developers?
Yeah, okay. So the developer, like we've said, has a choice.
The ecologist has a range of options to present to their developer clients on
how they might want to deal with their Great Crested Dukes and the impacts on Great Crested Dukes.
And the district licensing scheme offers a really fast and efficient route into
(43:14):
a license that can be dealt with at the same time as the planning application
is being determined by the local planning authority.
So, if the developer is keen to get on site quickly, for example,
doesn't want to wait for the survey season, doesn't want to or wants to cut
down post-planning permission delays.
(43:35):
Doesn't want to have to seek a separate license, then by entering the district
licensing scheme during the planning process means that all of the licensing
issues are dealt with in respect of Great Crescent News.
This doesn't solve any of the wider potential
ecological impacts all of the normal surveys
have to be carried out and impact assessment and
(43:57):
mitigation proposals whatever might need to be done for the wider biodiversity
or ecological impacts and the same with the the bng assessment that you know
that that still runs but in terms of newts which are often the the sticking
point They're the tricky species to deal with.
It often takes the longest, far longer than anything else.
(44:19):
They can enter the district licensing scheme during the planning process,
and they can find out exactly how much they're going to have to pay to deal
with newts before they even get planning permission.
They don't have to pay that whole amount before they've got the certainty of
having planning permission.
They enter, they pay a small fee, and then once they've got planning permission,
(44:42):
then then they can pay the full compensation payment.
So they've got certainty pre-planning. And then as soon as they got permission, then they can...
Be authorized under one of the district licenses. So it just cuts out loads
of uncertainty over timings and costs, long-term costs.
They see all of the costs up front. There aren't any hidden long-term,
(45:05):
oh, I've got to come back and do some more monitoring type costs in year eight.
They know everything up front. They can make a clear decision based on all the facts pre-planning.
All they have to do is come to NatureSpace, have an assessment,
and then they get some paperwork work to submit to the planning authority as
part of their planning application.
(45:26):
The planning authority, if they're granting planning permission,
they will apply one, two or three planning conditions, standard wording.
All the planning authorities have used them multiple times and they apply these
standard conditions to the planning permission.
And that's what creates the link between that planning permission and the future
(45:46):
use of the district license.
And once Once the developer has paid any remaining balance of their district
licensing fees, then they get authorized under the district license and they
can proceed as per any requirements.
Now, we've talked already about the potential for some on-site measures.
This district licensing scheme doesn't assume that everything is lost within
(46:11):
the red line development site boundary.
There are occasions where it would be better for newt conservation to have some
retention of important habitats, maybe some enhancement or creation of new habitat
where this would benefit the newt population.
And that's taken into account in the net impact assessment and ultimately how
(46:34):
much the developer has to pay into the scheme.
There is also some potential for mitigation, on-site mitigation measures to
try and reduce harm to great crested newts before the destructive works start.
And that's reserved for those really high risk situations where we expect that
(46:54):
there might be high, large numbers of newts impacted.
So that's going to be in areas that are identified through the modeling process
as high risk for great christed newts.
That's the red zones on our impact risk maps and where the development site
is very close or includes ponds within the development site boundary and highly
(47:16):
suitable habitat for great christed newts.
And in those cases, there might be some mitigation requirements.
They'll be reduced compared with standard mitigation requirements,
but there might be some just to reduce the really, really high risks in those sorts of situations.
And when we do the assessment, when the developer comes to NatureSpace,
(47:38):
having chosen the district licensing option, we undertake a bespoke individual assessment.
So our technical team is doing this day in, day out. And we have a very strict
set of protocols and procedures that they follow.
There's a quantified qualitative metric assessment of impacts on great crested newts.
And that determines the three elements of the mitigation hierarchy.
(48:03):
It's looking at whether the site should be avoided in whole or in part,
because there is potential for some development sites to be very,
very critical for the nuked population.
So for example, if a development site would result in a loss of range for the
species, then that's really serious.
And we would potentially have to, you know, look at how to reduce or avoid those
(48:28):
impacts so that we can avoid impacts at that scale.
We're also looking at how to minimize the impacts on newts using mitigation
in high-risk situations.
And then the metric also determines the proportionate compensation fee that
that development should pay, taking into account the specific impacts,
(48:49):
the types and amounts of habitat.
Not just ponds, but terrestrial habitats, how close those habitats are to ponds,
how well connected they are across the landscape and what
the impacts are so it's a proportionate qualitative
assessment of what the cost for compensating
for those impacts should be okay so you
(49:09):
then gets that paperwork they then decide whether
they want to use a district license and in most cases people do
they submit the paperwork to the planning authority and the
planning authority has then got that reassurance of
a process having been followed that's been been
regulated by natural england and they can rely on that
paperwork to say yes in this case the district
(49:30):
license is available for this development site that that
metric assessment also defines the compensation
requirement that that that we would have to do for that
that for that impact the impact that's being delivered by
that development so it would tell us the number of ponds
that we would need to compensate to meet the the occupancy and
the gain multipliers or ratios that
(49:52):
we are we are bound by and the area of
terrestrial habitat that we need to be delivered to so when i say terrestrial
habitat delivered that is uplifting habitat into a suitable condition for great
christian use when it wasn't before that that would be needed needed to be delivered
to compensate for the impact from that from that development site okay Okay.
(50:16):
Just a couple of questions coming from this. So in terms of,
I'll come back to fees in a second, but obviously compensation,
off-site, habitat creation, where's this land come from? Where's this land identified?
Well, we've got a spatial conservation strategy that's part of the license application
that goes to Natural England.
(50:36):
We have a series of strategic opportunity areas that are identified across the
landscape for every region.
So this is not a national compensation scheme. This is a regionally based spatial
conservation strategy for usually
the county and the planning authorities within a particular county.
(50:58):
So there's that broad scale spatial assessment that's done largely based on
the modelled outputs, but also taking into account other factors in the landscape
like barriers and that kind of thing.
But on an individual site basis, the Nuke Conservation Partnership are looking
at using that spatial conservation strategy, but they're also looking for very specific sites.
(51:22):
They're looking for sites where they can deliver high quality habitats,
clean water, and have sites that are going to contribute to that nuke population.
Okay, so they're actively looking for sites to bring on board then?
Working with a whole variety of landowners yeah
so they're out talking to landowners on a daily basis they're looking
(51:45):
they're talking to a huge range they've got
sites the owned by the mod right down to hobby farms so quite a forestry commission
wildlife trusts we we have compensation on their sites as well but council land
council council and anywhere that falls within the criteria that that they have
(52:05):
for a suitable delivery site.
So it needs to be able, yeah, okay, you need to be able to dig a pond and it will hold water.
That's sort of fundamental for pond creation.
But it should be being fed by clean water.
So we want to reduce arable runoff into it. We want to not have it linked to
a stream that might have fish in it, for example.
(52:25):
We, they're looking for the existing suitability of the terrestrial landscape,
but beyond that, they're looking for how easily is that site going to get colonized
by great crested newts? Is it completely isolated?
Is there actually no chance that putting a pond where, or putting a series of
ponds in terrestrial habitat is actually going to benefit the species?
Issues and if they don't think that we have models actually that show the connectivity
(52:48):
across the landscape and if this area is not going to be linked in to where
Great Crested Newts are then there's no point in building there so there's a
huge checklist that they go through to check that the site is suitable before
they'll sign an agreement with the landowner.
That's probably an entirely new podcast from the New Conservation Partnership.
Yeah, we'll have a look at that, we'll probably bring it on board later on yeah, thank you for that.
(53:11):
Going back to fees, so in terms of Okay, so when does the developer,
you know, first of all, I'm assuming there's a couple of payment plans or stages.
So initially when they, because you say everything's up front,
they know all the costs, so then they can make an informed decision.
So at what stage is the first payment required and what's that for?
(53:34):
And then any supplementary payments as well?
Yeah, so the first stage payment is required pre-planning.
But for many cases now, we offer an upfront free upfront assessment service
so that people can see before they paid anything at all,
what the second stage fee would be so they can see the fees in their entirety
(53:58):
before they pay anything at all.
But in order to use the district licensing scheme as evidence for the planning
application, then the first stage fee does need to have been paid because that locks in the developer,
their commitment to the district licensing scheme.
And it's a full assessment at that point to present to the planning authority.
(54:21):
Some cases are just a one-off fee, just a single one-stage fee only.
And that's that's reserved for the really low
impact situations so householders infill
development genuinely low impact development that's having you know potential
impacts on newts and newt might turn up during the course of works it's a bit
(54:46):
of an insurance policy in some cases but it's it's in terms of population level
impacts it's it's going to be low impact type activities limited.
Everything else gets a full bespoke assessment, and it's those cases that are
split between a stage one fee that's paid pre-planning in order to get that
assessment done, get the report to submit to the council.
(55:08):
But then the remaining fee, the second stage fee that we call it,
is payable after planning permission has been granted.
So people aren't having to pay large sums of money before they know if they've
even got planning permission.
In all cases, all of the fees, whether it's a single stage fee only or it's
(55:30):
a split stage one and stage two.
40% of the money goes straight to the New Conservation Partnership for habitat
creation and the Long-Term Management Fund, where they put aside money,
secured money for the long-term management of all the habitats that have been created.
So that happens with all of those fees.
(55:50):
And then on top of that, we send about another 20-25% to the New Conservation
Partnership for monitoring.
And then there's a whole load of money spent on supporting local planning authorities,
data costs, remodeling costs, reporting costs, renewal costs, etc.
(56:11):
But those fees are split across all of the payments that we receive from developers.
So it's not that the first stage payment is just paying for a piece of paper.
It's also contributing to the scheme because in this way, we can make sure there
is that continuous flow of funding for the new conservation partnership to start
(56:33):
to go out before a developer has fully entered the scheme.
Team start to go out and be looking for those habitats new habitat opportunities
in the places where development is likely to need it great yeah thank you for
that that's that's really clear and yeah so so about 35 percent goes to you
know operational activities then really you know.
(56:54):
Roughly speaking broadly yeah yeah great i say you've been very generous with
both with your time there so i'm going to draw today's podcast to a close but
i just wanted to say Sarah Garrett,
Andy Buxton thank you for joining me today on the Ecology
Academy podcast Thank you Richard If you
(57:15):
enjoy our show and want to help then please click on the subscribe button and
rate us on your favourite podcast player as that's how you can inspire ecologists
in the making help retain great talent and provide insights of our industry
to a much wider audience of why ecology really does matter Thank you,
And remember Remember, learning is a lifelong.
(57:38):
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