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| Developers versus Newts? by Jonathan Price BA Hons, AATech Cert Arb is an ecological consultant based in the West Country. If there’s one thing guaranteed to get a developer foaming at the mouth, gasping, short of breath and turning a violent shade of puce it’s the word ‘Newt’ (or ‘alternatively, ‘recession’, but that’s outside the scope of this publication for the moment.)  They tend not to be bothered by a specific type of Newt at first, and as a consultant, advisor or in whatever capacity you are employed, if you are the messenger that has to bring the word ‘Newt’ to the design-team table, prepare to deal with the consequences. As, arboriculturalists balancing the needs of trees and people with development we have a relatively easy life. Essentially, arboriculturalists are concerned with mediating between the local planning authority and the client, negotiating the (relatively limited) array of statutory constraints relating to trees with our experience, qualifications and knowledge of the relatively static and predictable entity at the core of our profession. Therefore, it may not be too simplistic to say that the most difficult aspect of our job is conveying tree- related ideas and concepts to various stakeholders. Also, trees, as topics for discussion can be quite readily understood by most people in the process. The benefits they bring to a development site are relatively easy to quantify. Where necessary, mitigation for their loss can mostly be easily incorporated into landscaping schemes and with a sensitive and progressive design trees can greatly enhance the built landscape (or vice versa). In fact, most of the current legislation relating to trees refers to their ‘amenity’, a benign term with its etymology from the Latin ‘amoenus’, meaning ‘pleasant’. All very well, but slightly woolly? The benefits of biodiversity on the other hand are more difficult to pin down and can generally lead to greater conflict and heartache both for developer and consultant. No one can really argue against the concept of retaining for example, existing mature Oak trees within a development. Developers are fed images from their designers and master-planners of cool, shady glades and groves where happy families picnic together and listen to the trill of nuthatch and tree-creepers just a hop and skip away from the comfort of their own wide-screen plasma TV’s but a short free-bus ride form ASDA. But going back to our opening sentence, way back before the first footing is dug, in the pre-planning and scoping stages, if newts are found as part of the ecological assessment of a site, then generally that’s bad news for the developer. Or at least in the current climate it’s seen as bad news, and in the financial forecasting for a development project, particularly small ones, it may be onerously so. Terms seem to be more pejorative and laden with subjectivity when it comes to discussing ecology, and protected species and it seems Newts, in particular. They don’t seem to press the same buttons, as say Bats, Dormice or even Badger. Small, cold, slimy, bug eyed, warty, slippery; hanging there in ponds, splay footed and staring (back to our pejorative terms there) What benefit can they possibly bring to a community? You can hardly see them, they don’t sing and since the Play-station II replaced the jam-jar and go-kart sometime in the early 1990’s, even kids don’t get involved (and in any case, children + ponds = contrary to EU Health & Safety Regulation 3453-24/1989 Section 12). As it is we have three species of newt in the UK (Smooth, Palmate and Great Crested). Only the Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus) has full protection under UK and EU law, it is listed on Annexes II and IV of the EC Habitats Directive and Appendix II of the Bern Convention and also protected under Schedule 2 of the Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) Regulations, 1994, (Regulation 38) and Schedule 5 of the WCA 1981 (as amended). This weighty armory of legislation reflects the decline of this species (and to a lesser extent, by association the other two) over the past century, mostly due to loss of breeding sites (small, mostly agricultural ponds), the changing of agricultural practices leading to the loss of terrestrial foraging habitat and habitat fragmentation. Their life cycle is also more complicated than most people imagine, with a large proportion of time being spent on land, foraging and hibernating, with the ponds only being used mainly for mating, egg laying and larval stages of development. The range of habitats used on land includes tree roots, deadwood, log piles and other similar natural or semi-natural features. Both as sheltered hibernation sites and as food resources for small insects and other pray, wood, trees and timber play an important part of their life cycle. What can sometimes seem a paradox, especially to our still spluttering developer, is that GCN are relatively common in England and Wales and sometimes, populations can be very large, even numbering thousands of individuals. The level of mitigation that has to be put in place for development to proceed (under licence issued by DEFRA) where GCN are present can often be large, time-consuming and expensive, both in direct costs and in limitations to developable area. This can seem anomalous for what is supposed to be a declining species, and care has to be taken when differentiating between ‘declining’ and ‘protected’ as opposed to ‘rare’. And after all, why TPO an oak tree when there are tens of thousands of them around? (OK, that isn’t an argument I’m particularly comfortable of, but you get the idea) My usual response, framed in various terms depending on context, is that why do we think they are declining when we want to build so many houses new houses on their ponds, hedgerows, fields and woods? It’s not a coincidence that issues arise when we’re all competing for the same resources, and that doesn’t apply just to Newts. A quarter of a million new homes in the Thames Gateway anyone? Mr Prescott wouldn’t comment and the Newt I asked just stared with piercing, golden-rimmed uncaring eyes. |
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