Natural England's New Charging Regime
Money, money, money...
This one’s really for people who are likely to need a protected species licence in the near future. If that’s not you, please enjoy this picture of a dormouse and I’ll see you next week.
So what’s this about charging?
Well, back in 2018, Natural England ran a consultation on proposals to start charging for some licences. They started the phased roll-out of these charges in April of this year, with bat licences, and so far they’re charging for bat and dormouse licences, with great crested newt and badger licence charges planned for the near future. The Wildlife Licence Charges (England) Order 2018 came into force on 1st October 2018 and makes provision for charges for all licences, with some exemptions.
Exemptions?
The consultation highlighted several areas where people felt that charging for licences would be onerous, so several exemptions were put into the order:
the prevention of serious damage to property;
the prevention of spread of disease;
public health and safety;
householder development projects;
conservation project delivery;
conservation science and
licences primarily used for voluntary purposes.
The conservation project delivery one is an interesting feature (bug?) of the English language because it relates not only to conservation in terms of the species involved, but also projects relating to historic properties including scheduled monuments, listed buildings, places of worship and some traditional farm buildings.
What will it cost if my project isn’t exempt?
Well, that’s the $64,000 question. I mean, hopefully it isn’t going to cost quite that much, but the actual answer is that it depends. If your project meets certain criteria, Natural England will assess it for a fixed price, which varies depending on the species involved. That means the fixed price for a dormouse licence is different from the fixed price for a bat licence (£690 and £500 respectively, if you’re interested). But if it doesn’t fit those criteria, then you’re on to variable charging, which is £101/hour billed to the nearest 15 minutes.
Will they tell me in advance what the cost estimate is?
Happily, if you fill in the right bit of the charge screening form, they will indeed give you a price indication. But they’ll only do that to the nearest day, and it’s only an indication, so it could cost more, and it’s a fairly broad range anyway.
Does this mean licence turnaround times will be quicker?
In theory, yes. Natural England have said the money generated from the new charging regime will go into investing in resourcing the licencing teams. In practice, we’ll have to wait and see.
What about survey licences?
Natural England are going to start charging for those too, again, the costs vary slightly between species, but the overall charging regime looks like it will end up being slightly higher for initial registration (but still under £100), then a cheaper online annual renewal which will be £35. It’ll be a bit more if you want to renew by post or email.
So what now?
The upshot of all this is that licences are no longer free for most development projects, with some exceptions, that consultants will need to also pay for their survey licences, and that these costs will need to be factored into the overall project costs. Because until now licences have always been free, I imagine this is going to come as a shock to smaller developers, and unless Natural England do manage to vastly improve the service they provide in terms of turnaround time, they’re likely to get some critical feedback.