Natural England
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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.
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 youve 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.
What you need to pay
It costs 80 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 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 complete a 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 action taken
You need to complete a survey return form between 1 and 31 October each year, even if youve taken no action or did not find target species. Youll need the names of any accredited agents who carried out the surveys on your behalf.
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
You must report your actions from 1 October to 30 September. For each site, you must record:
- the survey location (10 figure Ordnance Survey grid reference and what3words)
- the number of surveys taken
- the start and end dates of each survey
- if you found great crested newt eggs
- if you did not find great crested newts
- the highest number of juveniles or adult great crested newts you found
- the purpose of your survey
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.
Continue your registration
You can use the survey return form to continue your registration. It costs 35 a year to continue your registration.