About us

Sam is a Chartered Ecologist with over sixteen years’ experience in the environmental sector, including two years with the National Trust as a Forester and Ranger. He graduated from a master’s degree in environmental consultancy with training and experience in ecology and the consultancy sector, and joined FPCR in 2012.

Sam leads FPCR’s work on biodiversity net gain and supports clients across the public and private sectors in reconciling development objectives with outcomes for wildlife and ecosystems. He is a co-author of the 2.0 biodiversity metric and its associated GIS import tool, and has advised Natural England and Defra on metric development since the offsetting pilot stage. He develops mitigation strategies for veteran tree retention and BNG habitat creation, translating metric outputs into schemes that are deliverable and manageable in the long term.

Sam places particular emphasis on delivery on the ground. He acts as expert ecological clerk of works on multiple Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, holding the line between consented mitigation commitments and what is actually built, and advising site teams on protected species compliance, method statement variation and licensing during construction. He holds a Level 4 bat survey licence, great crested newt and barn owl survey licences, and a badger class licence, and his wider project experience covers Development Consent Orders, Environmental Impact Assessment and protected species licensing.

Sam also has a keen interest in the application of technology in the environmental sector. Having developed FPCR’s GIS system in 2013, he has continued to build on this through survey applications used across the practice to capture over 100,000 records. He has established FPCR’s thermal drone survey capability, applying radiometric thermal imaging to ground nesting bird surveys, where it locates nests and sitting birds without the disturbance associated with walked transects, and to bat surveys, where it supports roost identification and emergence observation on structures and trees that cannot be safely or reliably assessed from the ground.

Sam works effectively on both major, multi-phased developments for large developers and smaller projects for individuals, local authorities and charities. This includes undertaking all elements of projects, from initial site surveys and reporting on constraints and opportunities, through to liaising with planning authorities, responding to planning consultation responses and devising and implementing effective mitigation strategies.