Meadfleet’s Ecology Team recently visited one of our developments in Sileby, Leicestershire, investigating reports of the potential presence of great crested newts (GCN). Our landscape contractors had found some newts when working in an area of grassland and following best practice guidelines, they immediately stopped work in the area and contacted Meadfleet for advice.
We arranged for our ecology team, who hold licences from Natural England to work with GCN and other legally protected species, to visit as soon as possible to assess the area. During the visit they carefully lifted stones and debris and were delighted to find both great crested and smooth newts.
The area supports a variety of habitats including short grass, longer tussocky grassland and areas of scrub and young woodland and just outside of the areas we maintain is a balancing pond. This mosaic of habitats provides ideal conditions for great crested newts.
A desk study completed by our ecology team discovered that GCN have been recorded in the wider landscape, but the presence of the pond has provided breeding habitat, and the surrounding terrestrial areas function as a valuable resource for foraging, shelter, and hibernation.
We have informed the owner of the pond of the presence of the newts and have amended our management of the terrestrial habitats accordingly. We have prepared toolbox talks for staff and contractors working in GCN habitat, and we will be creating new refugia and foraging habitats to benefit GCN, smooth newts and other wildlife.
We are delighted that rare, legally-protected species are using our open spaces, and look forward to enhancing the habitats to benefit these target species and general biodiversity.
Click here to find out more about our experience and expertise in biodiversity
Find out more about Great Crested Newts from The Wildlife Trust
About Meadfleet
Meadfleet are a leading sustainable land-adopting management company. We have in-house ecologists with expertise in the BNG metric and are already applying the principles of Biodiversity Net Gain across our existing open space portfolio in England and Wales. Established in 1995, Meadfleet manage over 330 developments and 42,000 residential properties in our portfolio, with a strong balance sheet.
Meadfleet offers management of Biodiversity Net Gain delivery both on a managed development and on offsite areas, either via customer contributions or commuted sums. Our adoption model relieves developers of ongoing liabilities and management costs.
The Meadfleet model removes onerous liabilities from homeowners yet still encourages their input and engagement into the management of their local environment. We are committed to providing an excellent service to residents as demonstrated by our Excellent rating on Trustpilot and are members of The Property Ombudsman Scheme (TPOS), offering customers free, independent redress should they feel it is required. We are happy to work with residents groups and positively encourage the creation of these on the developments we are involved with. We believe this opens an effective two-way dialogue between homeowners and ourselves.
As a land-adopting management company, Meadfleet take long-term responsibility of open space, building customer and community relations and implementing perpetual management and improvement plans. We take a holistic and independent approach to managing areas of open space for the benefit of all residents, biodiversity and the wider environment.