Great crested newts: survey or research level 1 licence (CL08)
Register for a licence to survey great crested newts for scientific, research or educational purposes, including informing development projects – and report actions taken under a licence.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This licence allows you to survey great crested newts using:
- hand
- nets
- torches
- aquatic funnel traps (including bottle traps)
You need a level 2 licence to use pitfall traps.
You cannot use box traps.
You must release all great crested newts you capture as soon as you’ve finished examining them.
You must apply for an individual licence or a level 2 licence for survey, research or conservation work not covered by this licence.
For development work affecting great crested newts, you must apply for a mitigation licence.
Register with Natural England
Before you can use this licence, you must register with Natural England using the registration form for a class licence.
Register for a class licence to survey great crested newts
What you need to pay
It costs £104 to register for a new CL08 licence.
It costs £35 a year to continue your registration.
You must declare the intended use of the licence on your registration form. This will determine if you need to pay, such as if you are going to survey great crested newts for development projects.
Natural England will refund unsuccessful applications.
Read the terms and conditions for paying for a wildlife licence.
When you do not need to pay
You do not need to pay if the licence is only used for:
- voluntary purposes - any work you do is unpaid and you are registered with an organisation or charity as a volunteer
- conservation, science or research purposes, and research related to the protected species is carried out by a student or employee of an academic institution or research body
How to pay
You can pay using a bank card. Follow the GOV.UK Pay link on the registration form.
References
You usually need to provide at least one reference to support a survey or research licence form when you register for this licence if you:
- have not held a licence for the species or a similar species for the last 3 years
- have a licence but want to add new methods
Report actions taken under the licence
You must report in a survey licence return form any actions that are taken under this licence. Complete and submit the survey licence return between 1 and 31 October each year, even if you’ve taken no action or did not find target species. You’ll need to provide the names of any accredited agents who carried out the surveys on your behalf.
If you need to submit your survey licence return form outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk.
The actions that you report in the form should contain information about the use of the licence from 1 October to 30 September. For each water body (for example, a pond or a lake) you must record:
- the survey location (10 figure Ordnance Survey grid reference and county)
- the start and end date of the period that surveys took place at each water body
- the purpose of your survey
- whether great crested news were present or absent
- peak counts of adult and juvenile great crested newts
- the number of newts recorded by each licensable method
- results of egg searches, if conducted
- results of eDNA surveys, if conducted
- a Habitat Suitability Index score for each water body, if recorded
- presence of other amphibians, if found (native or non-native)
- presence of non-native plants, if found
You will not need to provide the results of surveys where you:
- did not use any of the licensable methods
- completed the survey under a different licence, such as a mitigation licence or project licence
- completed the survey as an accredited agent or assistant on someone else’s licence
Complete a great crested newt survey licence return form
If you or your accredited agents used licensable techniques, you must also send your results to the Local Record Centre. You can do this by recording your results on the iRecord website or contacting your Local Record Centre.
Using your licence for another year
By reporting your actions, you can continue to use the licence for the following reporting period. If you will use the licence for surveys to inform development projects, you will need to pay £35 to continue your registration for another year.
Get help
If you need help with registering for a class licence or completing your survey licence return form, contact wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk.
Updates to this page
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A link to the new online survey licence return form has been added to the page, along with details of what information is needed to complete it. The attached online form to register for a class licence to survey great crested newts has been replaced with a link and start button within the guidance.
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Updated licence charge.
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Added a link to the updated 'Apply for a class licence to survey protected species' form.
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We are currently making improvements to our licensing forms. The register for a class licence form on this page will change to a new format in early March 2025. Once this happens, the current version of the form will no longer be available.
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Updated this licence to cover the period 1 January to 31 December 2025. Reworded several sections to make the information clearer, including the section on 'Registering to use this licence'. Added an additional information and advice note (note b).
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There is an update to this licence for 1 January 2024.
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Annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2023.
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Page updated: You should only complete and submit a survey return form between 1 and 31 October. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk
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Added the link to the survey return form. You should only complete the survey return form between 1 and 31 October. If you need to submit it outside these dates (for exceptional reasons only) email wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk
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Edited the section under 'Report action taken' - you must complete the survey return form between 1 and 31 October.
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Annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2022.
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From 1 October, you will need to pay £80 to register for a licence, unless you are exempt.
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Added 'including informing development projects' to the 'overview' paragraph of the licence.
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Annual licence update.
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Added accessible version of licence (HTML).
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Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2020
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Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2019
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Registration form A29-1 added.
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Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2018
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Annual licence update 2017.
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Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2016.
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Added updated class licence. New version valid from 1 January to 31 December 2015.
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First published.