Construction company fined for damaging resting place of newts
8 March 2010
On 8 March 2010 at Lowestoft Magistrates Court, Barnes Construction Limited of Ransomes Europark, Ipswich, was fined £700 with £200 costs and a victim surcharge of £15 after pleading guilty to damaging or destroying a resting place of great crested newts at the construction site for a new Travelodge in Leisureway, Lowestoft.
The owners of the land at Potters Kiln had employed professional consultant ecologists to do a wildlife survey and apply to Natural England for a licence to trap and move any great crested newts to a new reserve set up specially to take them on land immeadiately adjoining the site. This land is now owned and managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
As part of the licenced trapping programme, a special amphibian-proof fence was erected around the entire site to help catch the newts but also to prevent them from returning to the site once they had been transferred to the adjacent site.
Natural England officers visited the site on 23 May 2008 following a complaint to find that the fence had been removed in some areas and damaged in others. This would allow newts to re-entre the site and potentially be killed or injured by the construction work which had already started on the site.
The company pleaded guilty to damaging or destroying a resting place of great crested newts under Regulation 39 (1) (d) of the Conservation (Natural habitats, &c) Regulations 1994.
Following the verdict, Natural England Wildlife Enforncement Specialist Paul Cantwell, said:
"This case highlights the need for construction companies to comply with the law in relation to protected species. In this particular case, the defendant failed to ask any questions of the site owner in relation to protected species and failed to ascertain the purpose of the amphibian fencing. Had it done so, they may not have ended up with a criminal conviction today. The aggravating feature in this case was that they were told by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, the landowner's ecologist, the Poilce and Natural England to stop works because of the risk to newts but failed to heed these warnings and carried on."
A spokesperson for Suffolk Wildlife Trust added: "We are pleased that the law protecting great crested newts, which are protected at both a national and European level, has been proven to work. Great crested newts are legally protected from trade, transport, possession, capture, injury, killing or disturbance. Their habitat also receives protection from disturbance."
