Bat Surveys Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, all bat species are afforded full protection under UK and European legislation, including the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended), and The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 (as amended). Together, this legislation makes it illegal to:

• Intentionally or recklessly take, kill or injure a bat;
• Intentionally or recklessly damage, destroy or obstruct access to bat roosts; and
• Intentionally or recklessly disturb bats.

A bat roost is defined in the legislation as “any structure or place which a bat uses for shelter or protection”. Roosts are protected whether or not bats are present at the time.

Bats are protected due to the historical decline in numbers mainly due to loss in feeding habitats and development affecting roosts.

Having bats in your loft doesn’t necessarily have to be an issue. Bats are not destructive and only roost in existing features. As bats in the UK only eat insects, their droppings are very dry and crumble to dust. When people do have bat roosts within their building, they often don’t realise! More information about living with bats can be found through the Bat Conservation Trust.

If you are concerned that you have bats in your loft, but have need to carry out repairs, or are planning on carrying out building works, we are happy to provide you with advice on how to carry out the works whilst also staying compliant with the law.

Bats are not considered dangerous to the general members of the public.

There is currently no risk of humans catching Covid-19 or other coronavirus from UK bats. A very small number of bats in the UK have been found to carry a type of rabies virus; however, this is transmitted through a bite or scratch from a bat’s saliva. There is no risk to the public if you do not handle bats. If you do need to handle a bat, for example if the bat is grounded or injured, always wear gloves, which would prevent a bat bite getting through.

Bats in the UK generally avoid humans and other animals, so if they have found themselves within the living areas of your house or outside in plain site, they are usually in trouble.

Please call the National Bat Helpline on 0345 1300 228 if you find an injured or grounded bat.

If you find a bat during building works, the first thing you need to do is stop the works and if safe to do so for the bat, try and cover over the area where the bat was found. If it is not possible to cover the area and the bat is exposed, please call the National Bat Helpline on 0345 1300 228.

Get in contact with us prior to any works continuing where we can advise you on how to proceed with the works lawfully. It will likely involve one of our ecologists attending site in order to advise further.

It is worth remembering that destroying a bat roost, either intentionally or recklessly, is a criminal offence. If you are in any doubt whether your proposed works may impact a bat roost, you can contact us for advice. It is always worth contacting us well in advance of the works to avoid causing delays to your project.

Any works that involve impacting buildings or trees, has the potential to affect bat roosts. Bats can fit in any gap wider than the average thumb, therefore even quite modern buildings or young trees could potentially have bat roosts. Any works that also involve additional outdoor lighting has the potential to disturb bats.

In order to find out if your development project will impact bats, a survey should be carried out by an ecologist, who will be able to inform you how to proceed.

Having bats does not necessarily mean the end of the project, as very few projects get completely stopped due to bats. There is nearly always a way to adapt the proposals to ensure bats will not be harmed during the project, and licences can be obtained from Natural England. Clever mitigation and compensation for bats can be designed to be incorporated with the new plans, which is unique to each project.

The survey involves licenced ecologists searching the buildings or trees for evidence of roosting bats, such as bat droppings, feeding remains as well as looking for live bats. The survey also assesses the habitat for its potential to support roosting bats, which involves identifying features such as cracks in brickwork, holes in soffits or lifted tiles, which could support roosting bats. If the survey is of a building, the survey usually involves both an inspection of the exterior of the building as well as a search for evidence within the building’s interior (if safe to do so).

Should evidence of bats be recorded, or features with bat roosting potential noted (features that cannot be fully inspected during the daytime survey), further bat activity surveys will be required (please note costs of further bat activity surveys would be additional to the costs for a daytime bat survey). To meet current industry guidelines and planning requirements a minimum of two activity surveys may be necessary, and in some cases (where bats are recorded), three surveys are required.

Bat activity surveys can only be undertaken during suitable weather conditions within the bat activity season (i.e. May to September inclusive) and involve surveyors monitoring the building at dusk or dawn with electronic bat detectors (and where appropriate Infra-Red video recording equipment) to determine whether any bats exit or enter buildings.

If you are unsure if your development will impact bats, you can contact us on info@morph-ecological.co.uk for advice.

Having bats within your development area does not mean the project is over.

Firstly, an assessment needs to be made of the type of roost, bat species and number of bats present. A Preliminary Roost Assessment (otherwise known as a daytime bat survey) can be carried out at any time of the year, to give an idea of potential bat access features and look for any signs of bats. Further assessment is made during bat activity surveys, which can only be carried out between May and September. Usually, three of these surveys are required (if bats are known, or are found to be present), which should be at least two weeks apart. It is also not usually acceptable to carry out all of the surveys in September.

Should bats be found during the surveys and works cannot be adapted to avoid impacting bats, development works may be able to proceed only after a European Protected Species (EPS) licence is obtained from Natural England. To obtain an EPS licence, detailed mitigation will need to be designed to reduce the chances of harming bats and to ensure provision for the bat species subsequent to works being carried out. Detailed mitigation can usually only be designed following three bat activity surveys carried out between May and September (inclusive). Natural England will determine whether the proposed mitigation is suitable and require 30 working days to process licence applications. In some instances, a Bat Mitigation Class Licence (BMCL - formerly Low Impact Bat Licence) can be applied for, which has less restrictions and speeds up the assessment time from Natural England.

Our team is on hand throughout the entire process to ensure our clients are informed and guided throughout.

The cost varies greatly depending on the proposed works, the size of the site and the type and number of bat roosts present.

Initially a daytime bat survey will be required, which usually costs from £350 depending on the size of the site.

Following the daytime bat survey, up to three bat activity surveys will be required. Each survey is likely to cost from £350 but depends greatly on the number of surveyors required to cover all buildings/ trees on site.

A full EPS licence application is time consuming to produce, so is likely to cost in excess of £800. A Bat Mitigation Class Licences (BMCL - formerly Low Impact Bat Licence), is less complicated to apply for and is likely to cost less.

Once the licence is granted, the works impacting the bat roost will need to be supervised by an ecologist. Generally, the hourly rate for one of our ecologists is £40 per hour.

The mitigation required will very much depend on the works involved. The cheapest option is incorporating bat roosting features within the construction e.g. installing small gaps within soffits. There are also options to build in bat bricks/ bat boxes within the development. Bat boxes are also often incorporated within the scheme. In some scenarios a standalone bat roost would need to be created, which could involve applying for planning permission and building a brick structure. As such mitigation could range from a few £100 to thousands of pounds.

Natural England also now charges for licence applications (with some exemptions including for private homeowner household improvements and if the bat roost is going to be retained). For full EPS licences Natural England charge either £500 for straightforward projects or their charge is based on an hourly rate of £101 per hour. For a BMCL, the cost is a fixed price of £130.

There may be a requirement as part of the licence to carry out monitoring surveys of the mitigation. This usually consists of a daytime inspection and bat activity survey for two or more years. It is likely to cost a similar price to the initial daytime survey and bat activity surveys.

Overall, you should budget over £3,000 towards bat surveys and mitigation for a straightforward project, but this can be much more, particularly if the site involves multiple buildings and/or multiple bat roosts.

If you would like a quotation for your site, please email info@morph-ecological.co.uk. We endeavour to provide accurate upfront costs were possible to ensure there are no hidden surprises.

If the survey work shows that bats use a building for roosting and the proposed works risk disturbing bats and/or destroying roosting sites, a licence would need to be obtained from Natural England ahead of works commencing. There are two possible licencing routes, which can be used in different situations.

European Protected Species Mitigation Licence (EPSML)	Bat Mitigation Class Licence (BMCL)
Natural England determines the licence within 30 working days	Natural England determines the licence within 10 working days
Licenced ecologists can apply	Only Registered Consultants can apply
Work timings may be restricted to avoid certain season	Work timings can occur all year
Mitigation and Compensation is required	Only small amounts of mitigation is required
Post works monitoring is often required	No requirements for post works monitoring
Any number of species/ individuals	Can only be used where there are no more than 3 common species of low numbers
Any type of roost is eligible	Restricted to feeding, night, day and transitional roosts
Any length of work period	Works can only last up to 6 months
Natural England either charge a flat rate of £500 or on an hourly rate of £101	Natural England charge a fixed rate of £130

Finding out if bats will be impacted by the development can be quite a lengthy process, and the length of time it takes is determined by a number of different factors. We recommend approaching an ecologist early within your project, to ensure it does not cause your project significant delays.

Activity	Timings
Preliminary Roost Assessment (PRA)	Can be carried out all year round
Bat activity surveys	Up to 3 surveys between May and September (inclusive)
Natural England to determine licence application	30 working days for a full application or 10 working days under a BMCL
Implementation of mitigation	Often mitigation is required (such as installing bat boxes on nearby trees) to be installed prior to works commencing
Works can commence	Works can only commence once the licence has been granted, works may be constrained to certain months depending on the type of roost to be impacted
Implementation of compensation	Compensation is often required within the final site plans. This can often be incorporated during the construction phase e.g. construction of a bat loft
Monitoring period	Some licences require monitoring to be carried out for a number of years after the works have been completed

If the preliminary roost assessment is carried out April-June, the process from initial survey to licence determination can take around 3 months. If bats are not considered early enough in a project, it can take over a year until works can commence.