The 5 Rules of Bat Surveys

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This is a quick, simple article written to help you get up to speed with bats, bat surveys, and their role in the planning process. It’s aimed at absolute beginners, but is no doubt equally useful for seasoned developers alike. Read the ’5 Rules’ and you’ll know pretty much everything there is to know about what bats mean for you and your planning application.

I’ve got to do a WHAT survey?

All 18 species of bat native to the UK are legally protected through their inclusion in Annex II of the EC Habitats Directive, which is transposed in England and Wales by the Habitats Regulations 2010. Disturbing bats or their roosts is a criminal offence. Therefore, if you’re planning—excuse the pun—to impact upon buildings, trees and or other potential roosting sites in the course of your development, howsoever insignificant the impact may seem, you have a legal obligation to avoid disturbing bats as you do so. There is established case law supporting prosecutions for development disturbing bats, which twice has reached the Supreme Courts!

Rule One: Bats and their roosts are protected by the full weight of UK and European law.

Why can’t it just be conditioned?

In ODPM Circular 06/2005 and Planning Policy Statement 9, central government has clarified that local planning authorities must fully consider a proposed development’s impact upon protected species as they are a ‘material consideration’ in the determination of planning applications. In the context of bat surveys, this infers that where there is a reasonable likelihood of protected species being materially impacted upon by your development, surveys must be carried out before a planning application is determined.

Rule Two: Your local planning authority doesn’t have any say in the matter (and neither do we.) Planning authorities will not leave matters such as bat surveys or mitigation to conditions.

Who can do a bat survey?

Bat surveys must only be performed by a licensed bat consultant; someone who is educated and trained to handle and disturb bats safely, and has proven this to the powers that be. A license is issued to a surveyor by Natural England in England and the Countryside Council for Wales in Wales. These two bodies are known as Statutory Nature Conservation Organizations. The license essentially permits actions that would otherwise be unlawful e.g. disturbing bats—which you frequently do when visiting their roosts. Without a license, a surveyor must retreat if they uncover evidence of bat roosting, which is not much use to you, as the resulting report would be incomplete. Further, without a license the surveyor may be judged to be incompetent and so have their report disregarded by the local planning authority.

Rule Three: Ask to see proof of your surveyor’s ecological qualifications, training and most importantly, a roost visitor’s license for bats issued by a SNCO. Professional Indemnity insurance of £1m wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.

When can it be done and how much is it going to cost me?

There are two types of bat survey. Let’s call them ‘Scoping’ and ‘Emergence,’ for the sake of simplicity. A scoping bat survey (stage 1), is an internal and external inspections of your buildings and can be undertaken any time of the year. The exercise is designed to report to you and exclude the presence of three triggers for emergence surveys, as follows:

-presence of bats i.e. positive/negative
-evidence of their activity e.g. droppings, urine stains, bits of prey, dead bat carcasses
-access to features suitable for roosting; graded on a continuum from negligible through to high

If either presence or evidence is positive, or there is medium to high potential for roosting, you will have to propose mitigation or habitat enhancements for bats in your planning application. Without this mitigation there would be a net loss of habitat—the cause of bat population decline that drove lawmakers to legally protect bats and their roosts in the first place.

Obviously it is not possible to propose mitigation for loss of roosting habitat if e.g. the species of bat, the population numbers, and the roost’s significance is unknown. To illustrate this point: it is much easier to mitigate for a single pipistrelle male—common throughout the UK—using your site as an occasional summer roost than say, a large maternity colony of a rarer species of bat. So it follows that the industry guidance for deciding on what mitigation is appropriate, is to conduct bat emergence surveys (stage 2.)

In the UK, bats hibernate during the winter months, when the insects they predate upon are less abundant. This means emergence surveys are limited to summer months, typically (though not exclusively) anytime during May through September inclusive. The surveyors use equipment that records and converts bats’ echolocation calls into sounds we can hear and interpret. Surveys are conducted either at dusk or at dawn, when bats can be seen to emerge or re-enter a roost. In this way, our report can show, scientifically, that the mitigation you propose as part of your planning application is adequate and appropriate to the species and population of bat, and the actual use of the site.

Typically, scoping surveys cost £399 ex VAT, as they represent around a day’s work. Emergence surveys involve several visits to the site, at night, normally by at least two surveyors (so all angles of the building are covered.) This means they are more expensive and typically, cost £899 ex VAT, as they represent around two day’s work.

Rule Four: Scoping bat surveys (stage 1) can be done any time of the year. Only in the case that we can exclude the presence of bats, evidence of their activity and access to features suitable for roosting, does this complete the survey effort. Emergence surveys (stage 2) can be undertaken when climatic conditions are conducive to bat activity; normally this means May through September.

OK, I’ve had my emergence surveys done. What next?

From this point things get a lot simpler. Either, you are disturbing a roost but not destroying it, and therefore mitigation can be approved by the local planning authority and dealt with as a condition of consent. Or, you are destroying a roost e.g. demolishing a building identified as a roost by our surveys, and you will require a European protected species license (EPSL) from Natural England (again, the license makes lawful actions that would otherwise constitute an offence.) An important consideration is that your planning application is judged on the suitability mitigation you propose, not whether or not you require an EPSL, according to Natural England’s Standing Advice. So, while the EPSL application process is separate and can take up to six weeks to be determined, it has no effect whatsoever on your planning application. If you require an EPSL, the application is made using their own template method statement and application form, and provided corners have not been cut, is rarely refused. (Arbtech have never had a refusal.) The actual EPSL application is free, though there is clearly a charge to author a method statement and oftentimes, local planning authorities that hold data records needed for applications make a small charge for data searches. Once you have your planning consent and/or an EPSL, you are good to go. Implementing the mitigation as part of your development

Rule Five: Your planning application, robustly supported by a scoping survey report (and or emergence survey report) will enable you to secure a planning consent. Under certain circumstances, you may require an EPSL for your proposed development, but that will not affect your planning application.

So to summarize then:

i)   Get a scoping bat survey done.

ii)  If you need to, get the bat emergence surveys done.

iii) Propose appropriate mitigation for bats in your application. (Read more.)

iv)  Get your planning permission!

v)   (Apply for an EPSL if applicable.)

If you found this article useful, please let us know: email@arbtech.co.uk

If you would like to know more, or to arrange a no obligation quotation, call 08450 176950 and ask to speak with Robert Oates or Martin O’Connor.

Informative link:

Protected Species and Planning Flowchart: Natural England