Services
Ecology & biodiversity
Surveys have seasons and planning committees do not care. The single most useful thing we do is tell you in January what you will not be able to survey until June.
What this involves
- Six, four disciplines
- Licensed surveyors
- Run at concept, not at submission
- BNG metric
- Mapped for you in writing
- Survey season
- All nine ecologists
- CIEEM members
Biodiversity net gain has been mandatory for most development in England since February 2024, and the pattern of failure is consistent: the metric is run at the end, on a layout that has already been costed, and the site turns out to be 4% short. Recovering that late costs either developable area or an off-site unit purchase, and off-site units in the Thames Valley have been trading at between £22,000 and £42,000 each.
We run the metric at concept stage on the layout you are considering, not the layout you have committed to. On a 140-unit scheme at Theale last year that moved a swale 30 metres and changed a mown amenity strip to a managed grassland — a change of about £11,000 in landscape maintenance terms which avoided buying three units off site.
Survey constraints are the other half. Great crested newt eDNA is mid-April to end of June. Bat activity surveys need May to September, three visits, and a competent surveyor per access point. Breeding birds need at least three visits between March and July. If you come to us in September with a February planning target, we will tell you that plainly rather than quote for it and hope.
Sectors
Where we do this work
Housing & mixed use
From nine units to 1,400. Most of our work, most of our planning conditions discharged, and where biodiversity net gain bites hardest.
Energy & renewables
Solar, battery storage and grid connection. Glint and glare, skylark plots, cable route ecology and the Habitats Regulations screening nobody budgeted for.
Transport & rail
Vegetation clearance ecology, noise and vibration near track, and lineside contaminated land where the ballast has been there since 1898.
Also from Thornfield
Other services
Air quality & odour
Construction dust assessments, road traffic and combustion dispersion modelling, and odour assessment for waste and wastewater.
Read moreAcoustics & vibration
BS 4142 industrial noise, BS 8233 internal levels, construction noise to BS 5228, and vibration to BS 6472 with the measurements to back it.
Read moreLand & groundwater
Phase 1 desk studies, intrusive investigation, remediation strategies and verification, plus hydrogeological risk assessment for the Environment Agency.
Read moreGet in touch
Tell us about the site before you buy it
A twenty-minute call at option stage is the cheapest environmental advice you will ever take, and occasionally it is the advice not to proceed.