To think bat surveys are a racket?

[cakehoover123]

The council says we need a bat survey before we can replace the roof of the dilapidated house we're buying - a house that is empty, listed, and leaking.

The house is quite likely to have bats in it, since it's in the countryside, empty and full of holes!

I sent floor plans and photos to an ecologist who said a "preliminary" survey would be £540. He didn't give an estimate for the full survey.

I replied to ask:

1. Could he estimate for the full survey?
2. Could we just go straight to the full survey, given that it's so likely there are bats?
3. Could we skip the survey, and just do mitigations, on the assumption there are bats?

He said:

1. £1200-£1800 estimate, but cost "could vary significantly" above that
2. No, the preliminary survey decides what later surveys are needed
3. No for a "whole raft of technical, practical and legal reasons", and the council's building consent most likely wouldn't even be legal if they gave it to us on that basis

Googling around, these costs seem pretty standard.

Now I am keen to look after bats, and keen that wildlife is protected, and would want to put bat boxes etc in even if there were no bats - but this is starting to feel like a racket.

Firstly, how can it be so difficult to say how much something costs before starting work? Secondly, why do we need to spend £2k+ on surveys, if we just agree to do mitigations? We can't not repair the roof - the house will fall down if we don't! So the only question really is how to mitigate.

Are bat surveys the racket they appear to be?

Or - perhaps some MN ecologists out there will know - are there good reasons why the system appears to be so opaque, expensive and bureaucratic?

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!

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.

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

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!!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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...

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

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.

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!)

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

By the roofer or a bat person?

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...

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

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

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.

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

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...

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