Revoked General licences for bird control: next steps to apply online

Natural England has now published a simple online application system for individual wild bird control licences. Natural England has been working urgently to identify alternative solutions for all those affected by the decision on Tuesday (23 April) to revoke three general licences for controlling certain wild birds.

General licences will be restored as quickly as possible, starting with those species that are most likely to require urgent control.

In the interim, before these general licences are available, where there is no reasonable non-lethal alternative, there is a simple and quick online application system to obtain individual licences to control wild birds. These are accessible now.

What to do if you use a general licence
It is expected that, over time, most situations currently covered by the three general licences will be covered by new licences.
Natural England is undertaking new licensing assessments to support lethal control of certain birds in defined situations, such as to prevent serious damage to livestock from carrion crow and to preserve public health and safety from the impacts of feral pigeons. It intends to start issuing these licences on GOV.UK from 26 April. It will also publish a timetable then to show which licences will be available when.
If people need to take action in the meantime they will need to apply for an individual licence, using the simplified process which was made available on GOV.UK from 25 April.

See here for further information https://www.gov.uk/government/news/general-licences-next-steps-to-apply-online and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wild-birds-licence-to-control-certain-species