ecology If you can't take a joke, don't apply. Ecology like it really is.

[ToughButterCup]

I  now understand why farmers dump pig manure into perfectly healthy ponds with before submitting a planning application. Doing that kills all the wildlife, and in doing so prevents this kind of thing happening. The following is a simple factual easy-to-read list of what happened, and a brief comment at the end.

• October 2015, full PP, with conditions attached ' ...get an EPS licence...' (European Protected Species Licence for Great Crested Newts)
• Meeting that month with the Ecologist to establish a timetable for Licence Application submission: Target November 2015
• Several follow-up emails: Licence applied for in February 2016
• Natural England write to me explain that there were 16 errors in the application
• Corrections submitted March 2016
• Licence accepted by Natural England May 2016
• Licence submitted to LPA May 2016
• June 2016, the LPA has still not formally accepted the licence (but has done informally)
• 30 days of trapping will start in July
• And end in Mid August 2016

Costs?

Initial survey £1300+, and the Licence Application £1800 (details here)

On costs; roughly another £2000.

The application system is cumbersome. Great Crested Newts are common.  I will give full details in my blog soon. I'm not cross - just wiser and more understanding. I've used the enforced delay to improve plans and do a lot of preparatory work myself. 

If I can't take a joke, I shouldn't have applied, should I?

[Jeremy Harris]

17 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

Great Crested Newts are common. 

Therein lies the problem.  Great Crested Newts are indeed very common, yet they are still listed as being a protected species, dating back from the time when they may not have been so common.

The same applies to bats.  Some species (pipistrelles, for example) are extremely common, in fact so common I doubt that you can go anywhere in the countryside and not find them.  However, they are lumped in with all other bats so are given exactly the same level of protection as bat species that are under threat.

If you want real madness then how about the friend of mine that was required to undertake a badger survey as a planning requirement at the same time that badgers were being culled in the area..............................

You really couldn't make up some of the barking mad legislation we have.  We seem to have adopted a policy of blanket legislation, rather than allowing common sense to be applied as to where protection is needed and where it is not.  Even an ecologist relative of mine says the same, that the current legislation is probably harmful to wildlife overall, as those in the know do rather like you've suggested, and remove any wildlife before making an application, just because they know that common sense won't be applied.

As a footnote, we looked at a cow shed conversion a few years ago.  It was being sold with PP and the surveys etc had all been done.  Half the building was an open-fronted machinery store and the ecologist had found a single Pipistrelle dropping in there.  In his report he noted that it was probably not an indication of a roost in the building, as it was open fronted, but most likely just left by a single foraging bat from the nearby woodland.  The planners still insisted that the plans include a "bat hotel", with an entrance at one gable.........................

[SteamyTea]

GCN are very common in the UK, but the real problem is, as Jeremy points out, the blanket method of dealing with them.

I am not sure how you get around then problem without corruption setting in, but I am sure there is a way.  Maybe a huge fine, one greater than the developments worth, would sort it out.  That way you are still left with the development, but the corrupt developer/official are no longer involved.

[ProDave]

I get the feeling if our planning aqplication had been somewhere else, but with all the "features" of this plot, we would have had a lot of ecological conditions. As it happens, there are none whatsoever.

For a start we have the burn. I am sure some environmentalists could find lots of ways to make our life awkward.  The reality is we are not really touching the burn, apart from installing a discharge pipe, but we are not altering it's course or anything so disturbing nothing. But I'll bet in some places you would have to jump through hoops just to prove you were not disturbing it.

Then there are friends the bats. There are loads of them here. Go outside at dusk and you can't fail to see them flying about. Where do they roost? heaven knows, probably up ther road in the derelict wooden building that years ago used to be a pub but it's now abandoned and in a very poor state with holes in the roof. Again in some places we would probably have conditions attached so we don't harm their habitat.

And then there are trees. We have lots of them. Two had to be removed to build the house and were agreed by the planners, but the remaining ones don't have TPO's so I can trim them or thin them out as I want to.

I am just applying common sense. I am not cutting all the trees down. I am not (as my neigbour keeps talking about) culverting and covering the burn where it passes through the garden, I am not knowingly disturbing wildlife. In some places you are not credited with enough intelligence to apply common sense and have to have everything dictated to you.

[joe90]

Don't start me off on bats !!!!!, perhaps now that we are out of the European Union we can indeed produce uk legislation ( or should that be English legislation!) that takes into account realistic goals. ( I always was an optimist .  )

[ProDave]

I heard a novel way of dealing witb bats today.

 

In a village not far from here has been an empty building. It used to be a pub and restaurant but has been empty for probably 20 years.  In that time ne peril has befallen the empty building.

 

Last week I drove by and saw demolition had started.  Today I was there working across the road, and noticed demolition had stopped.  That's because asbestos has been found and they are awaiting its removal.  Then I noticed the exposed roof structure looked like there had been a fire recently.  Ah yes says the man I was working for, they discovered bats in the roof.  A week later the building caught fire.  Some coincidence.