Checking an ecologist's licence before you appoint them

Before you appoint an ecologist for anything involving bats, great crested newts, dormice or badgers, ask for the licence number and check what it actually permits. A protected species licence check ecologist exercise takes ten minutes and protects you from the one outcome that cannot be fixed later: survey work carried out unlawfully, which taints the evidence and can leave you and the surveyor exposed to prosecution.

The licence is species-specific, method-specific and time-limited. Holding one for bats says nothing about newts.

Why the licence matters and what it permits

Most of the activities an ecologist needs to carry out on a protected species survey are criminal offences without a licence. Disturbing a bat in its roost, entering a badger sett, handling great crested newts and taking eggs from a nest are offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017.

Natural England issues two broad families of licence in England. Survey and research licences permit the disturbance involved in finding out what is present. Mitigation licences, sometimes called development licences, permit the offences involved in carrying out works that will damage or destroy a roost, a pond or a sett, subject to a mitigation scheme.

A surveyor who turns up to do a bat emergence survey needs the first type. The development itself needs the second, applied for after planning permission is granted and usually after the detailed method is fixed. Those are separate applications with separate timescales, and conflating them is how schemes lose a season.

Class licences against bespoke mitigation licences

A class licence is a general permission published by Natural England, which a registered person may act under by notifying rather than by applying each time. The registered person has to be accepted onto the class licence by meeting stated experience and competence criteria, and the licence sets limits on what can be done under it.

A bespoke mitigation licence is applied for by, or on behalf of, the applicant for a specific site and a specific scheme. It takes longer, requires a detailed method statement and mitigation plan, and is the route where the scale of impact goes beyond what a class licence permits.

Ask which route your ecologist intends to use, and why. If the answer is a class licence, ask for the registration number and the licence reference. If the answer is a bespoke licence, ask for an honest estimate of the determination period and build it into the programme, because the licence is needed before the works start rather than before the application is made.

Which register or record to ask for

Natural England publishes guidance on wildlife licences and maintains the registers for class licence holders. The practical sequence is this.

1. Ask the ecologist in writing for the licence number, the species covered, the methods permitted and the expiry date.
2. Ask for a copy of the licence document itself, not a summary.
3. Check the name on the licence matches the person who will be on site, rather than a colleague or the firm.
4. Confirm with Natural England where the licence type is one held on a published register.
5. Record what you checked and when.

The third point is where most problems are found. Licences are personal. A practice may have three licensed bat workers and eight staff, and the person sent to your site in August may not be one of the three. Ask who is attending, by name.

Reading a licence

Four fields matter. The species, because a bat licence does not cover newts. The methods, because a licence may permit capture and handling but not endoscope inspection, or permit disturbance but not obstruction of an access point. The geographic scope, because some licences are limited. And the expiry date, because a survey carried out a fortnight after a licence lapses is unlawful even if everything else was correct.

Read the conditions as well. Class licences typically require registration to be current, records to be submitted to Natural England within a stated period, and the licensed person to be present on site rather than supervising remotely. A licence held by someone who has stopped submitting returns can be suspended.

Where the survey is a preliminary walkover rather than a licensed activity, no licence is needed at all. A Preliminary Ecological Appraisal and a daytime inspection of a building for signs of bats sit outside the licensing regime, which is one reason that work can be commissioned quickly while the licensed survey waits for the season.

Questions to put in writing before appointment

Send these before the fee is agreed, and keep the replies.

• Which licence will you be working under for each survey type, and what is its number and expiry date?
• Who will be on site, and are they personally named on that licence?
• What is your professional indemnity cover, and does it extend to protected species advice?
• Which survey windows apply to this site, and what is the earliest date a full result can be reported?
• If a mitigation licence turns out to be needed, who applies for it and what is the expected timescale?
• What happens to the programme if the survey finds a roost?

That last question separates the ecologists who will tell you bad news early from the ones who will not. An honest answer describes the branch in the road rather than reassuring you it will not happen.

What happens if work proceeds without a licence

The offences are criminal and they attach to the person doing the work and, potentially, to the person who caused or permitted it. Natural England can refuse a subsequent mitigation licence where earlier works have already destroyed the feature, which leaves a development unable to proceed lawfully at all.

In planning terms the consequences arrive earlier. An authority that sees survey work reported by an unlicensed surveyor will normally treat the Protected Species Survey as unreliable and ask for it again, in season. A Bat Survey rejected in September means waiting until the following May.

Protected species surveys and any mitigation licence require a suitably licensed ecologist under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. An AI-assisted draft is a starting point for that professional and never a substitute for the survey itself.

Recording the check on your project file

Keep a single page in the project file with the surveyor's name, the licence number and type, the species and methods covered, the expiry date, the date you checked and how. Attach the licence copy and the appointment letter.

Two moments make that page worth the effort. The first is validation, when a council asks who carried out the survey and under what authority. The second is sale or funding, when a purchaser's solicitor works through the ecology chain and finds a gap. A reviewer from the professional directory will ask for the same evidence before putting their name to a report.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.