We do! We have the relevant experience and development licence to be able to apply for and manage the entire licence process for you.
You are primarily – and legally. But we can and do look after all elements of the process to ensure compliance. It’s often straightforward when you know how.
Natural England allow 6 weeks for a licence to be determined and granted.
It depends on the work and the licence requirements. The closure of a badger sett is constrained to July – November each year. Closure of setts outside of this window is not likely to be approved.
If you need to close a main badger sett then there will almost certainly be a requirement to replace this habitat with an artificial badger sett. We have built 100’s of these to the recommended spec and have had great feedback from Natural England themselves on the design and construction of setts. We have come up with plenty of innovative and creative solutions too! You do not need a licence to build a sett but you will need one before you close the active sett.
You shouldn’t need to build artificial setts as compensation for the loss of an outlier or subsidiary sett.
We always need to work to the conditions associated with the granted licence for any particular project. However, the general principles are the same. We fix metal one way badger gates to all sett entrances and pin chain-link over the sett and the surrounding ground. Badgers let themselves out of the sett and then can’t get back in.
There is a requirement to monitor sett closures for a period of 21 days before we could destroy a sett: either by machine or by concreting up holes and burying the mesh – depending on the project requirements. If badgers are found to still be present within the sett during the 21 day monitoring then this period must be extended.
