Protected species and development: advice for local planning authorities

Publication Year

2025

Document Status

Current

Abstract

Provides advice for local authorities on assessing planning applications where there are protected species on or near a development site.

Document History

Last updated: 7 April 2025 - Updated the list of offences to match the relevant legislation in the section on how the species are protected and also added new wording about planning conditions, including the discharge of conditions and issuing of licences the 'Planning and licence conditions' section. Changes have also been made to Table 1 in which the lists of habitat types and species have been updated; and to Table 2, which is updated to include species and timings not previously listed. Additionally new information outlining Natural England's offer to developers regarding surveys has been added in the 'discuss survey requirements with developers' section. Sourced from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/protected-species-how-to-review-planning-applications and converted to pdf. Whilst we endeavour to capture all updates it is subject to receiving alerts from the publisher and there may be formatting or punctuation changes applied to the html version that do not affect the text. Document type: guidance. First published: 6 October 2014. Published jointly with DEFRA.

Publisher Information