An independent, science-led practice

What we are, and what we are not

We are a new practice, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. What we bring is not institutional history; it is nineteen years of combined consultancy experience carried over from established practices, an internal technical standard we wrote deliberately, and a deliberate ceiling on how many projects a director can hold at once.

What that buys you: your scoping call is with the person who will sign the report. Survey slots are booked before the season, not scrambled for during it. And every deliverable goes through a second senior ecologist before it leaves — because a report that comes back from the local authority ecologist costs you a determination cycle, and that is the expensive failure mode in this business.

What we are not: a twelve-discipline EIA house. For a very large scheme needing ecology integrated with noise, air quality, transport and heritage under one roof, a larger consultancy is the right appointment, and we will tell you so rather than take the work.

Who does the work

Seasonal field assistants are engaged for the May–September peak and work to our field protocols under the supervision of a licensed ecologist.

Technical standards and quality

• Two-tier peer review. Every client deliverable is reviewed by a second Senior or Principal Ecologist against our internal technical standard before sign-off. No exceptions for small jobs or tight deadlines.
• CIEEM Code of Professional Conduct. Our ecologists are bound by it. Where the evidence does not support the answer a client wants, we say so in writing.
• Method transparency. Survey effort, conditions, equipment and any departure from published guidance are recorded in the report, so a reviewing ecologist can audit what was done rather than infer it.
• Digital field capture. Habitat and species data are captured in the field on GIS tablets and carried through to the metric and the mapping without transcription.

Health, safety and lone working

• Lone-worker tracking on every field visit, with escalation if a check-in is missed.
• Dynamic risk assessment for night-time bat work, with a minimum of two surveyors on any night visit.
• Water safety protocols for aquatic and riparian survey.
• Professional indemnity, public liability and employer's liability insurance in place.

Where we bring in specialists

We would rather name a gap than stretch across it. Arboricultural survey to BS 5837 is delivered through trusted, insured arboricultural consultants. Specialist freshwater work — macroinvertebrate sampling, fish eDNA — is delivered with partner practices. In both cases you are told who is doing the work before the appointment, and we carry the coordination and the peer review.