Background
Southern Ecological Solutions (SES), on behalf of Fusion JV, completed several interconnected stages of ecological work for HS2, a nationally significant infrastructure project. Our initial project programme expanded ten-fold, owing to our demonstrated ability to deliver complex work packages on time and budget.
Badger package
The HS2 project needed to safeguard wildlife and maintain habitats along its planned route. To facilitate this, we surveyed 80 miles of the HS2 route, specifically to retain as many badger setts as possible. When it was not possible to keep setts, our ecological and technical coordination teams produced detailed daily programmes that tracked the production of badger method statements (BMS) and their approval. We created approved site-specific work package plans and permits and ensured the delivery of closure work to ensure the project’s deadlines were met.
SES managers and planning staff regularly visited sites. They remained fully informed of the site’s constraints and opportunities. The badger team took on additional complex closure work in sectors where external contractors were unsuccessful. SES ecologists at many levels worked across 61 territories, closing 389 badger setts from 2019 to 2021, including main, annexe, subsidiary and outlier setts. We built nine artificial badger setts, which were all prefabricated and pre-cut off site, reducing on-site manual handling and waste. We upskilled our supply chain so they could develop new lifting plans, providing a learning legacy to local businesses.
In conjunction with HS2 and Fusion JV, we pioneered a sustainable sett design to try to remove plastic from the process. SES also closed badger setts in key programme areas for Fusion JV/HS2. These areas included the trackside, which required RISQS accreditation, and on steep banks, which required specialist rope access. Our bespoke GIS system captured the data for submission to the Fusion JV and for uploading to the project-wide GIS system.
Bat package
During 2020/21, SES completed about 1200 dusk emergence and dawn re-entry surveys and over 2600 climbing surveys of trees with potential for bats. We installed 33 bat boxes. We designed, led and undertook a suite of surveys and compiled a bat licence application to enable removing 0.7 ha of ancient woodland. The licence application relied on using Licensing Policy 4 (the first use of LP4 with a barbastelle because of the suboptimal set of data collected). It involved extensive knowledge of scientific evidence regarding the ecology of bats, as well as liaison with the client, lawyers, other stakeholders and Natural England, to create a bespoke bat licence.
SES developed the mitigation and compensation approaches (with input from Natural England and other specialists) based on a worst-case scenario and aimed to mitigate and/or compensate for several bat roosts, including pipistrelle, barbastelle, brown long-eared bat and Natterer’s bat breeding and resting sites. The mitigation approach included detailed pre-fell inspections and soft felling during the active season, as well as implementing control measures throughout the construction period regarding lighting and noise.
Compensation measures included providing bat boxes and translocation of roosting features to trees in the retained part of the woodland and extensive habitat creation to link parcels of woodland in the local area. This licence was approved by Natural England in March 2021 and the works were implemented during April and May 2021 through a collaborative effort between SES and other contractors. We have subsequently provided expert witness support for a judicial review challenge to Natural England’s decision, working with counsel and Fusion/HS2 as an interested party.
Great crested newt package
We completed population assessment surveys on numerous ponds in 2020 to supplement HS2 data. At one large great crested newt (GCN) metapopulation site (AMP), we identified a medium population of GCN. Ensuing mitigation throughout late summer 2020–1 led to the translocation of 8377 amphibians and reptiles, of which 3262 were GCN, the largest translocation undertaken by HS2. Three ponds were drained during winter. Amphibians and reptiles were translocated to a receptor site, where 14 waterbodies had been created, along with species-rich grassland, woodland planting and other features to benefit wildlife. The waterbodies were surveyed in spring 2021, with 12 found to support breeding GCN. Monitoring and site maintenance will continue at this site in accordance with the licence for up to ten years, with the first surveys beginning in 2022.
SES delivered mitigation work at another AMP site in 2021. One of which covers the largest area of any AMP on the project. We managed to obtain licensed method statements for a complicated phase 2, which had overlaps with 5 non-HS2 GCN licences. Owing to successfully completing our tasks, we have secured additional contracts with the main contractors EKFB JV, Align JV and BBV JV.
Project coordination
A designated project coordination team delivered the packages, requiring a resource-heavy workload in the species-specific survey season. This approach enabled us to run our surveys simultaneously and to the highest standard, and to deliver thousands of surveys in the appropriate season.
SES staff received all five supply chain collaboration awards from the Fusion JV as recognition of our approach. Stuart Pankhurst represented SES with the Fusion JV at the Construction News health and safety awards in June 2022. Other main work contractors have awarded SES contracts to undertake ecological mitigation work and provide consultancy services.