Local Authorities & Statutory Agencies

To enable the development of the new Academy it was agreed to translocate the population of common lizards to a receptor site. A suitable site was identified within a nearby 34 hectare public open space and hibernacula were constructed to provide additional hibernation habitat. Three hectares of new reptile habitat is also being created to compensate for the 2.5 hectares lost to the development works. This is being created adjacent to the receptor site on an area previously comprising amenity grassland. Mowing here ceased at the end of 2009 to allow the beginnings of a rich tussocky grassland with patches of scrub to take shape. The creation of hibernacula, log piles and artificial basking areas (by removing several 5m square areas of topsoil and replacing it with compacted sand and shingle) will be carried out in 2011 to further enhance this area for reptiles.

Reptile exclusion fencing was installed around the areas of suitable habitat on the development site and hundreds of sheets of roofing felt and corrugated roofing material of varying sizes were placed on the ground to attract the animals who favour these materials to bask on or under. A total of 68 trapping and translocation visits were made between the beginning of September and mid October 2009. A further 98 visits were made between March and July 2010. 578 common lizards were translocated in total.

Some areas of the site were more populated with lizards than others. In these areas more visits would be needed before the numbers of lizards being caught would start to drop off. The client had a tight deadline for construction so the delay in access to certain parts of the site had to be managed carefully. Willmott Dixon ensured that the trapping area was subdivided into smaller areas with exclusion fencing and the habitat was manipulated to enhance the trapping effort through the regular strimming of the grass to ground level, around islands of longer grasses in which the artificial refugia were concentrated. This method, agreed with the contractors, meant that we could hand over small sections of site as soon as they were clear of lizards and allow the project to progress, thus reducing delays for the contractor. Trapping continued in each area until a minimum 90 visits had been carried out followed by 7 visits where no common lizards were observed. The trapping programme proved to be a success – once 7 clear visits had been achieved in each trapping area, only 6 lizards overall were found during the final destructive search of the site.