To think bat surveys are a racket?

Such things are always ok until thry sffect one personaly. Then they are a pain aren't they?

I found this thread as I was searching for advice, and it's terrified me...

We're having replacement felt and battens on our roof. And last week our roofer stripped all the tiles off, then saw a bat so had to immediately stop work, and now we're trying to find out where we go from here. We've called Natural Resources Wales (where we live) and are waiting for a reply from them.

But we've also looked at the Bat Survey companies, and are too scared to go further because of what's outlined above - the cost, the length of time... Meanwhile, we have no roof! There's a massive sheet of plastic over it which is flapping and banging 24/7... we're hardly sleeping...

I'm exhausted following cancer treatment anyway, and to be quite honest, this has really pushed my mental health to the edge and I don't know what I'm going to do... I can't believe we can be left literally without a roof over our heads because of one bat...

And we really needed more work to the roof but couldn't afford it, had to keep the costs down, and now it looks like we could be hit with a bill of thousands of pounds...

Can they really make us live like this indefinitely? What if you literally cannot afford the bat survey? I'm not sure I can take it...

That suggests that something in the mitigations / execution wasn’t appropriate for the situation (or coincidental environment changing). That’s exactly why professional and comprehensive bat surveys and investigations are important - to try to stop situations like this arising.

I feel it's a bit batty to install bat houses which the bats do not use.
Neighbouring house had roof replaced and extension after a very expensive bat survey (they knew there were bats). Bats were transferred to bat houses on nearby trees. We never see bats round the houses now.

We had a lovely bat lady come and do the initial survey (£500), in a derelict building with a roof which leaked all over the place. Honestly I think she deserved the money for the danger alone.

She was really thorough, even looked in bits we couldn't get access to, basically told us what the report would be which was bats hate being cold and wet which the whole roof/attic space was. She told us all the things we were intending on doing anyway (bat boxes, suitable materials used so any bats couldn't get caught) and ways on planning the roof area. She was happy this was already on our buildings plan and the council accepted it immediately.

When we were up there she looked out of the window at all the old buildings and said, why on earth would a bat choose this space when within a mile there were so many other suitable places.

Honestly it was one of the least expensive things we have had to do so far, and well worth it.

If you think putting up some 'bat houses' are the only mitigation required, then you've just proved why the survey - carried out by experts - is required.

Bat surveys are expensive because you generally need multiple ecologists present at dawn and dusk, plus expensive equipment, and considerable desk work either side of the surveys - it’s labour intensive.

It has to be this way because the mitigations and permission to proceed depends not only on whether bats are present but also on where / how / which species - and that all affects how you proceed downstream of the surveys.

It’s not meaningless bureaucracy, it’s really important to safeguard the bat populations.

We had bats nearby. We knew there were no bats in the cottage we were demolishing, but still had to have evening survey etc. You must do these at the right time of year, so that delayed us a few months.

Trying not to be bitter, but a bat survey fee is peanuts compared with all the other surveys we've had!

BTW I hope you don't have a pond.

It has been many years since we did our roof on our listed cottage, I remember the dawn and dusk surveys well. From memory it cost us about £10k all in for the surveys and documentation. We did have bats and had to put special bat tiles in one elevation, we could only re roof at a certain time of the year and the ecologists were required to be on site to take any bats out by hand to a new bat box. Was quite the palaver!

YANBU. We had a survey and were told we had bats when applying for planning permission for an extension - I've never seen a bat in all the years we've lived here (we used to watch bats in my grandma's garden so I know what they look like). We had to provide bat boxes in the trees. One of the boxes fell out of the tree a couple of years later (rotten branch) and had NO bat droppings or sign of use. We don't have bats!!

Agree with you and in the same boat... it is a ridiculous cost before we even start the planning!

I am many thousands in and have to have three more surveys at dawn and dusk before I get to begin the planning journey. It's an absolute nightmare and does feel like unnecessary hoops. Like you I'm prepared to put in full mitigations of bat houses so also don't see why I've needed to wait a year to do what I've known I've needed to from the outset.

Firstly for the preliminary survey you are paying for the ecologists time . An ecologist who has been trained to a high standard post degree level . This will include desk based research , on the ground survey to look for signs of activity and determine to a certain extent the type of bat ( some are rarer than others ) and then a written report .

The on site investigations if they are present will determine the types and numbers of bats present and the type of roost . This will involve at least 3 surveys and dusk and Dawn which invoke the physical presence of the bat surveyor . This person is an ecologist with a bat licence . Depending on the results some will need mitigation done of varying types can’t be mitigated so work can’t take place ( rare but does happen ) and some just need bat boxes . A written report is also required . Seems good value to me for all that!