Statutory guidance

Water voles: licence to displace them for work on flood defences, water courses or drainage systems (CL24)

Register tofor use a licence to displace water voles to allow Internalinternal Drainagedrainage Boardsboards to carry out works that could disturb or damage their burrows and report actionsyour taken under this licence.actions.

From:
Natural England
Published:Published
29 February 2016
Last updated:updated
22 1 SeptemberJanuary 2026 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Registration form (CL24)

MS Word Document, 87.2 KB

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Licence to allow Internalinternal Drainagedrainage Boardsboards to intentionally displace water voles for work on flood defences, water courses or drainage systems (CL24)

HTML

Report your actions (LR24)

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 81 KB

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Monitoring form (MON-CL24)

66.5 KB

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Details

You must now have a licence to intentionally disturb water voles and move them from their original location by ‘displacement’.

This licence is for employees of Internalinternal Drainagedrainage Boardsboards (the local public authorities with powers to manage water levels within their drainage districts) or anyone acting on behalf of them.

This licence lets you intentionally displace water voles and damage, destroy or obstruct their burrows to maintain or restore flood defences, drainage systems and water courses (such as rivers and streams) . to: This licence can only be used:

  • to preserve public health or safety
  • to prevent serious damage to livestock, animal feed crops, growing timber, fisheries or any other property
  • for reasons of overriding public interest

You can:

  • cut vegetation over the burrow back to bare earth in spring and autumn and if required remove water from the water course (known as ‘water draw-down’)draw down’)
  • carry out a destructive search of water vole burrows following removal of vegetation
  • destroy the empty burrow after a destructive search

You should apply for an individual licence if you cannot follow the terms and conditions of this licence.

On

Register thisto pageuse you can:

Register with Natural England

You must register with Natural England before you can use this licence.

Only employees, contractors or consultants acting on behalf of Internalinternal Drainagedrainage Boardsboards are eligible to register to use this licence. NaturalSend England will confirm your completed registration inform writing.(CL24) Youby mustemail notor carrypost outto:

Wildlife anylicensing licensed(Science, activitieseducation untiland youconservation)

Natural receiveEngland
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Email your registration.wildlife.scicons@naturalengland.org.uk

Complete

Telephone the0300 registration060 form

Complete the registration form for a new licence.3900

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Youby should31 checkJanuary foreach anyyear amendmentsusing to the termsdetails and conditions of use on the latest published version of this licence.form.

Report actions taken under this licence

You must usealso complete the watermonitoring vole licence report of action form, to(MON-CL24) reporteach anyyear actions taken under this licence together with any monitoring undertaken to check for the presence of water voles at sites where displacement has taken place. ReportSubmit yourthis actionform betweenwith 1your andannual 30report Novemberand eachkeep year,a evencopy ifin you’vecase takenthis noinformation actionis orrequested didin not find the target species.future.

You

Licence will be asked:

renewal

  • for

    By returning your licencereport details

  • detailsform ofeach allyear displacementyou’ve activitiesrenewed undertakenyour usinglicence. thisYou licenceshould (thischeck alsofor includesany worksamendments conductedto bythe Accreditedterms Agents and Assistantsconditions acting under their authority)
  • details of monitoringuse undertakenon to check for the presencelatest ofpublished waterversion voles at sites where displacement has taken place
  • if you want to continue using your licence for another year

Submit a water vole displacement CL24 class licence report of actionthis and monitoring licence.

Get help

If you need help with registering for a class licence or completing your licence return form, contact enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk.

Updates to this page

Published 29 February 2016
Last updated 221 SeptemberJanuary 2026 href="#full-history">—+ Showshow all updates

  1. New online registration form as well as a combined report of action and monitoring form.

  2. Updated this licence to cover the period 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2030.

  3. Changed the scientific name of water voles to Arvicola terrestris for the purpose of this licence. We have added a new information and advice note (note e).

  4. Updated this licence to cover the period 1 January to 31 December 2025. Reworded several sections to make the information clearer, including the sections on 'Registering to use this licence' and 'Recording and reporting requirements'. Additional techiniques added to the section on 'What this licence permits'. Amended licence conditions (conditions 7, 9 and 16) and an information and advice note (note d). Added additional licence conditions (conditions 4 and 8) and an information and advice note (note b); these have been renumbered following the addition of the new conditions and note.

  5. There is an update to this licence for 1 January 2024.

  6. Licence updated to cover the purpose of reasons of overriding public interest. Annual updates valid from 1 January 2023.

  7. Annual licence update, valid from 1 January 2022.

  8. Annual licence update.

  9. Accessible version of licence added - HTML.

  10. Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2020

  11. Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2019. Replaced registration and report forms with updated versions.

  12. Replaced licence with new version issued 1 January 2018

  13. Annual licence update 2017.

  14. Annual licence update 2017.

  15. Added monitoring form.

  16. First published.

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