At Thomson, we are keen to assist our clients from the first email or telephone conversation right through to the end of a project, and beyond.We understand the ecological constraints that you have on site and we want to ensure that planning consent is achieved, as well as saving you time and money.
We work on large infrastructure projects, as well as medium to small developments. These may involve the demolition or refurbishment a building, such as a school, the redevelopment of a site, or the conversion of an existing building for residential purposes, such as a barn. All these projects require planning permission; therefore, assessments of the ecological value of the site and of the presence of protected species are required.
For this reason, as soon as we receive a request for an “ecological survey” we look at the site and determine exactly what you need. Sometimes a “generic” ecological survey is not sufficient to assess the presence of protected species, such as bats.
Features in buildings – such as cracks in the walls, missing mortar, lifted tiles on the roof, or gaps in the soffit box – provide bats with habitat opportunities. For this reason, you may not be aware of their presence. We can carry out a very specific type of survey to find them, following specific guidelines from the Bat Conservation Trust. For this, we would provide a suitably experienced ecologist with a Natural England protected species licence for bats.
Planning Authorities know that bats are protected and they will ask for evidence that you have undertaken the right survey to assess their presence.
For this reason, if a building suitable for bats is present on your site, we recommend an external and internal inspection of the building, known as a Preliminary Roost Assessment. The same applies to other protected features that you may have on site, such as trees. Our experienced team can combine baseline ecological surveys together with arboricultural surveys or species-specific surveys.
Being aware of which surveys will be required at the very beginning of the works will save time and money, and avoid any last minute surprises in response to your planning application or, even worse, when your teams are mobilised on site ready to start the works!
We provide you with the complete consultancy service from our first contact with you. We give our clients the guarantee that we will resolve the ecology issues on site, and, in the long term, save you money and time.
So, if you need any ecological advice, get in touch. We are keen to assist you with your project.
