Guidelines for Bat Surveys

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This is an article that is designed to provide a summary overview of the Bat Conservation Trust publication, Bat Surveys—Good Practice Guidelines, in the context of planning and development. The BCT first published the document in 2007 and have recently (2010) updated it with more information relating to surveying for wind farms. While the BCT make it patently clear their guidelines are not intended as a consultancy manual, they are the most comprehensive publication on the subject of surveying for bats and in particular for planning and development.

Summary of Bats and the Law

For much more detailed information on the law that projects British bats, see our article dedicated to Bats and the Law. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provides protection for all bats and bat roosts. The Countrywide and Rights of Way Act 2000 protects bats from disturbance and includes for their places of shelter e.g. roosts. Finally, transposing the EC Habitats Directive, which includes all British bats in Annex II as legally protected throughout Europe, the Habitats Regulations 2010 make it an offence to disturb bats, damage or destroy their roosts or deliberately capture, harm and kill bats. Actions such as demolishing a property without a license from Natural England or the Countryside Council for Wales engage the Directive and so constitute an offence. It is illegal for anyone who is not licensed to knowingly enter or disturb a bat roost, whether occupied or not.

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Bat Surveys for Developers and Architects

Both Planning Policy Statement 9, Biodiversity and Geological Conservation, and ODPM Circular 06/05 ensure that protected species of all kinds are considered materially in the determination of a planning application. Consultant the five rules of bat surveys to read more about what this means for your planning application and the timing of a bat survey submission the local planning authority.

Prior to application, a bat consultant should be contacted to advise on the actual requirement for a survey. An extension to a new build home—with tight fitting windows, no cracks in brick work, no hanging, missing or lifted tiles, etc—is unlikely to require a survey, whereas a century-old church or derelict farm house is much more likely to provide suitable roosting habitat, and also to have strong linear features e.g. hedgerows that connect the site to other habitat, such as ponds or woodlands. If your site has been confirmed as needing a bat survey, the consultant can then consult the BCT guidelines to advise on the most appropriate type of survey, and the so-called survey effort.

In the case of most developments, roosting features and or evidence of activity, if not the animals themselves, will present a planning application with a need for bat activity surveys at dusk, for emergence and dawn, for swarming activity to be adequately observed. This enables a surveyor to establish the species of bat, the use of your site and population numbers. In turn, this enables the bat consultant to make recommendations for mitigation that the local planning authority can see is grounded in scientific investigation and proper experience.

The BCT guidelines themselves, go in to great detail about the species ecology and distribution for each type of bat in the UK, and make recommendations for the appropriateness of survey efforts and timings dependent upon variables such as the size of your site and the species of bat you expect you may encounter; as well as the nature and intensity of your development. Following these guidelines to the letter often is more expensive than not, but almost inevitably results in a robust planning application and consent from the local planning office, which enables your development to progress quickly, efficiently and without delays. Alternatively, it will ensure that any application for a bat mitigation license is not met with resistance from Natural England, who are especially interested in not just the mitigation, but the survey effort that led your bat surveyors to the conclusions he or she has come to about the species of bats using your site and the populations affected by the development.

If you find bats during a development, you must immediately cease all site works and contact the relevant Statutory Nature Conservation Organization e.g. Natural England, (England), Countryside Council for Wales, (Wales), or Scottish Natural Heritage, (Scotland).

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To have a discussion with a licensed bat surveyor about your site, please call us on 08450 176950.