Council spends £1m protecting 'colony' of great crested newts
then finds out there were no newts there at all.
15th May 2008
Generally speaking, no
great crested newts is good news for developers.
The shy, slimy creatures can cause costly re-thinks to building plans because
they are covered under EU law and the Wildlife and Countryside Act, making it
illegal to capture or kill them or to disturb their habitat.
But for one council, news of the amphibians' absence has left them crest-fallen
- and £1 million out of pocket.
Protected: Great crested newts
Leicestershire County Council had already
complied with Whitehall's orders to spend that amount to protect a small
"colony" of the slippery customers after evidence of them was detected in ponds
near a major road building scheme.
Today, however, it was revealed that it was all money down the drain - because
further tests have now found there were no great crested newts there at all.
The pointless outlay has prompted council leader David Parsons to write to
Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
demanding a policy re-think on newt protection.
"We have to safeguard wildlife, but we need a change in the law," Mr Parsons
said.
"This is an awful lot of money, and I think the public will take it badly.
"We have to talk to government about the balance between money and saving
wildlife, because I don't think we have it right at the moment."
As the Daily Mail reported in February, the council had to suspend work on a
£15million bypass for the village of Earl Shilton after evidence of the great
crested newts, which grow up to 6in long, was found nearby during surveys last
summer.
A 1,000-yard exclusion zone was immediately thrown up around the ponds while
further tests were carried out. Experts later confirmed there were probably no
more than 10 newts and perhaps as few as just one.
Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of pounds still had to be spent on
newt-proof fences and special traps to help move the newts - or newt - when
hibernation ended in spring.
Workers were even required to inspect the traps - placed at 65ft intervals all
around the exclusion zone - twice a day once temperatures rose above 5C.
But council engineering manager Derek Needham confirmed yesterday: "We have
caught a number of normal newts - but no great crested newts."
Helpless officials at the council, which commissioned the road, could have faced
a massive fine or even jail if they had failed to protect the "colony".
No-one from DEFRA was available for comment, but conservation agency Natural
England said the law was the same throughout Europe.
A spokesman said: "The great crested newt and its habitat are protected because
the species has declined significantly in recent decades."
The road had been ahead of schedule before evidence of newts was discovered. It
is now expected to open in February 2009 - three months late.
Earlier this month a junior environment minister defended spending £60,000
moving four great crested newts from a site in Cheshire.
Joan Ruddock told the Commons: "It is not possible to equate the overall sum,
which is relevant and necessary, to the number of newts actually moved."
