Great Crested Newt Ponds

Identifying ponds where great crested newts are breeding

Natural England are intoducing a new approach to how, European Protected Species licenses are issued (when such species are affected by development) and move towards a landscape approach to favourable conservation status for great crested newts (GCN).

This means that local planning authorities will need to identify where the important areas for newts are.

TVERC mapped ponds in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse and identified where great crested newts (GCN) were breeding.

Ponds are not well-mapped due to their ephemeral nature and small size. It is also important to record negative records for GCN, incidences where a survey has taken place, but a species has not been found are also not well-recorded. 

TVERC have mapped 2.956 ponds in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse, of which 118 have GCN, 51 with positive records and 67 with negative records.

This will provide South and Vale with baseline information on GCN distribution in the region to facilitate targeted surveys to improve that knowledge.

TVERC has also carried out pond mapping for Cherwell, Wokingham and more recently Bracknell Forest in 2021.