Delight at newts being found in North Swindon

The discovery of great crested newts at some overgrown and even dried-up ponds at a location in North Swindon has delighted conservationists, and local councillors.

And the councillors will now be thinking about how better to protect the amphibians and their habitat for future generations.

Borough councillors for St Andrews ward Jake Chandler and Dan Adams joined in with staff and volunteers from Wiltshire Wildlife Trust to conduct a survey on the creatures last week.

Councillor Chandler said: “We went out to the location, which I shouldn’t reveal other than to say it’s in St Andrews Parish council area, on Tuesday night to set the traps and make the survey, and then back on the Wednesday morning to log results and release any newts”

And Cllr Chandler said the results expected most people’s expectations: “There were newts at all three of the ponds surveyed, and it looks like a stable, healthy population.

“This is great news because we think the ponds date back to the year 2000 and were created by a developer as a place, they could rehome great crested newts they found on their development site.

“In the last 25 years the ponds have become very overgrown, and some of them dry up in dry weather, so the assumption was that any newt population was long gone.

“The fact that we found a stable population in all three of the ponds we surveyed means we can go on to survey more ponds and locations now.”

Great Crested Newts are a protected species in the UK, and while Cllr Chandler got to handle some, he was only allowed to do that because he was with Wildlife Trust staff who have a licence from Natural England which allows them to carry out surveys and disturb newts, and who supervised him.

He said: “I have an allotment, and I’ve found and returned common newts to ponds, but it was the first time I’d held a great crested newt.”

And now, as chairman of St Andrews Parish Council, as well as a borough ward member, Cllr Chandler said he wanted the parish council to look at ways of ensuring protection of the animals.

He said: “Great crested newts are a protected endangered species, and if we want to protect them it’s vital to protect the habitats they live in, so we’ll be looking at ways of doing more for that.”