To think bat surveys are a racket?

Yeah, it looks like going the government route is going to take as long as government routes usually take ('we might be able to get back to you in the next two weeks unless Wendy's off that day'), so the next step is contacting ecologists in the area...

Or indeed, @1dayatatime , put out a signal for Batman...

Further bulletins as events warrant...

You're right, the only reasonable course of action here is to retrain as a bat ecologist 😉

In other words: to defeat bat ecologists... You must become a bat ecologist

Many years ago I had to have a bat survey and afterwards the surveyor left his business card and for job title he had "Batman"- which I thought would be a pretty cool response when asked what do you do for a job?

I can assure you the majority of surveys are indeed done for a reason even if that is to “rule out” something.

With some of the larger companies it can be a fear of bad publicity or legal issues and they send someone out for literally anything. Like a pond on an aerial that’s no longer there. Or a stream that’s been culverted and underground for years. To tick a box.

For what it’s worth otters have been known use woodland pretty far from water for breeding. Why that would affect the changing of a wire on a pylon I’m not sure. That does sound strange. Probably some sort of mistake somewhere.

The whole “survey” world is an extortion racket in my opinion.
My Horses paddock has a big electricity Pylon in it - the national grid are replacing one of the wires. A few weeks ago a man came round to inspect for Otters. There are no otters because there is no water, no river, no ponds, not even a ditch! But even so, he insisted on coming out and looking, no doubt charging £500 when a quick check on google maps could have told him the nearest stream is a good mile away. No wonder everything is so expensive these days!

Potentially in some scenarios yes. The (bullshit) idea is that money will pay for strategic mitigation on a large scale instead and that this will be more beneficial. Not that there’s any evidence for this whatsoever.

It’s not the law yet and it’s aimed at developers so how it might apply (or not) in this scenario isn’t clear yet.

Well no but you suggested doing surveys was insane on an existing building.

Therefore I was just pointing out the law can be broken regardless of if the building is being repaired or is new.

I thought the government when considering getting rid of bat surveys.

https://www.bats.org.uk/news/2025/01/planning-reform-bad-for-bats

I didn’t say otherwise?

The law is the law regardless of what/why you want to do works.

Your reports wouldn’t pass the ‘competent person’ test and you could be at risk of prosecution if you did particular things while not holding either the statutory personal or work plan EPS licences.

The listed building isn't mine, just OP's.

Yeah, though, I'd have thought a simple repair should be okay - it's just finding someone official who can okay that.

I'm thinking this is just something we need to pay the right professional to make it go away as fast and economically as possible now. My health comes first.

Insane that you need them for repair work to a house that already exists - I could understand if you were building something new on the plot.

How much do you want the house? Extensive repairs + listed building already sounds like too many headaches!

I would set up my own bat company and find a loophole that way.

Thank you for that @Orangemintcream , really useful... I'm going to get over my crying jag, have a cup of tea and try again...

He seems utterly clueless about what to do for getting a surveyor, @QuirkInTheMatrix . So I don't think he has one for a friend - nor, indeed, does he deserve any friends...

Coming off the back of cancer treatment, I just wanted it done quickly, and we'd used him before... 🙈

If he was then he would have suggested pre works surveys before he ripped the tiles off …meaning any roosts could have been licenced and OP wouldn’t have no roof.

You need to contact someone competent.

The problem is that there are absolutely one man bands and even companies that are shit at what they do -what they do do they don’t do properly which give everyone else a bad name.

Continue to engage with NRW but quite often the expect the consultant to use their own professional judgement rather than directly giving advice themselves.

Given that the roof has already been removed there may be little point in night survey as it’s likely any roosts are long gone - although it will depend on what the rest of the property is like.

So you’ll likely need to have someone out to at least have a look to determine if there are any areas left that could contain a roost still. This would be a preliminary roost assessment or PRA.

Without seeing it I can’t be sure but I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up working under a method statement of some sort rather than needing to do surveys and apply for a licence as there likely isn’t anything left to survey.

If there is anything left or other areas that could contain bats then you might be looking at survey and a licence application.

Then new roof can be built with features suitable for bats to return. And yes you will need to pay for someone to write a method statement based on their years of expertise.

Start with the CIEEM list - just be really clear what has already happened and that you’re looking to restart works as quickly as possible.

Hmm. Let’s hope he’s not also mates with the local bat surveyor 🙈. Did you not get multiple quotes for the roof?

Rachel Reeves mentioned newts the other day and that construction sites should not be delayed but also carried out sympathetically around these issues or words to that effect

Roofer - he's quoted us just to repair with the old tiles for the same price she's getting for new tiles and scaffolding and guttering...

By the roofer or a bat person?

It gets worse. Speaking to a neighbour who's having similar work done, it appears we have been significantly ripped off...

Thank you for the responses so far!

@MurdoMunro that's great info, I'm calling up the website for the Cardiff area now (from your name I'm guessing you're in Scotland though? Lived in Aberdeen for years and still do some BBC work there!)

I used to be a consultant ecologist. Bat surveys were my least favourite thing, often working at height, in nasty confined spaces, the unsocial hours (dusk and dawn surveys in May and then in the office all day writing up the reports).

I do understand your pain with the coast though. There were times when we could see a domestic client was in a hole with it and if they were nice to us - by that I mean not yelling at us for something that was not our fault - there were things we could try for them. My company was expensive but a few times I’d quietly pass them a note of a one-man-band ecologist in the area who was both good and cheaper (naughty, don’t tell my ex-boss 😆) or we would use our contacts in the voluntary/community groups and ask if they had one of their retired but still licensed people to do the field work and we’d just top and tail it with the reports.

The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management have a public database of qualified ecologists. Have a look at who’s in your area and get a quote from one of the very small/one person consultancies and see if you can get a better price.