Bhela Ecology — Ecological Survey & Consultancy
Good development
starts with understanding
what’s already there.
Ecology is not a box to tick at the end of a design. Surveyed early, it tells you what a site can carry, what it cannot, and where the constraints sit — while there is still time to design around them.
Bhela Ecology works with landowners, developers, architects and planning consultants across the UK, from first appraisal through to discharge of conditions.
Survey.
Assess.
Advise.
Scoped to the site rather than to a template. Most projects need less survey work than they fear — and need it earlier than they expect.
Preliminary Ecological Appraisal
The baseline survey most planning applications begin with — a walkover of the site, a habitat map, and a clear view of what further work, if any, is needed.
Protected Species Surveys
Targeted survey work where a site has the potential to support legally protected species — scoped precisely, timed to the season, and reported for planning.
Bat Surveys
Roost assessments, dusk emergence and dawn re-entry surveys, and activity work — the survey type most often requested by planning authorities.
Biodiversity Net Gain
Baseline habitat condition assessment, metric calculations and a net gain strategy that works with a scheme rather than against it.
Habitat Assessment
UK Habitat Classification survey and condition assessment — for net gain baselines, land management planning and site appraisal.
Ecological Planning Support
Responses to consultee comments, discharge of ecological planning conditions, and advice through the application process.
Fieldwork.
Three settings that account for most of the work — and most of the constraints a scheme runs into.
Fig. 01 — Field surveyIndependent
by nature.
The ecologist who walks your site is the ecologist who writes your report and answers the planning officer’s questions. Nothing is handed down a chain.
That continuity is the point of an independent practice. Judgement made on site stays attached to the advice that comes out of it, and you deal with one person throughout — not an account manager relaying a surveyor you never meet.
Field notes
01—05
Plain explanations of the survey work, the seasons that govern it, and the parts of the planning process that catch people out.
When do I need a bat survey?
The question that arrives most often, usually attached to a planning condition and a deadline.
What is a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal?
The survey almost every project starts with, and what a good one should actually tell you.
Ecological survey calendar
Which surveys can happen when — the constraint that governs most ecology programmes.
Discuss a
project.
Send over the site details and Bhela Ecology will advise on the survey work a project actually needs — and the season it has to happen in.