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?

Absolutely @Kandalama

I have concluded bat surveys are indeed a racket to keep ecologists in business. We actually had planning permission but decided to make some significant changes really too major to just modify that permission (ironically with less changes to the roof) so re-applied, and suddenly survey required!
PRA showed no sign of bats but just based on it being a big, older house ecologist insists on entry/re-mergence surveys which can't happen until next summer. Asked why on earth we can't just assume the there are roosts and take major precautions and mitigations now: ie supervised roof removal with ecologist present, alternative roosts etc, but no that is reckless apparently! Got to have multiple surveys next summer costing around £5K.
It isn't the money, I genuinely do want to protect the species and biodiversity where we live, it is the delay which is an absolute killer. There is no logical explanation why we can't just work on the theory there ARE bats and work in a responsible way to protect them.
In retrospect should have stuck to the old permission, ripped the roof off, covered in scaffolding and then applied for the new permission. The incentive is to destroy any habitats BEFORE involving the authorities. It's a broken and non-sensical system.

Just in case it's helpful for the future - it's always worth speaking with your local planning authority ecologist as there's sometimes flexibility on the survey dates. We managed to get a 10-day extension once which saved us a 6-month delay.

I'm puzzled that the council have insisted. Can they do that? On what basis? Is there anyway, that you can push back at that because if there's any chance I certainly would. Email them and ask why?

I agree it's just a racket to keep ecologist so bat surveyors in a job!

I know there are protective species and I would never hurt one, but I certainly don't want them living in my house thank you very much!

@JBOXON
Councils can insist because they are a protected species . I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s spotted them flying around the area so they already know they are somewhere.

Theres no exact standard period when work can be carried out as it depends on the species which ecologists won’t know unless they have done a survey. The species will also determine mitigation factors, method of working etc. So there’s your logical answer

no they won’t allow you to work around the premiss they are there as they simply can’t without knowing the species

Generally winter months are the hibernation period and summer months breeding and taking care of young.
Some species allow working in the roof after March for a while.
Some have a very limited period of say just April

But based on what? Just an inkling? Why should every building owner be subjected to this extra cost if there's been no sightings, no evidence of drippings, flight of them etc?

Every building owner isn’t
Not sure why you’d think they are

It will be because there’s been sightings
or a nearby property has them.
or
It’s empty old barn or similar

The requirement for a survey isn’t random

Just because it's an old barn doesn't mean it's got bats. Where are these local sightings? Just because there are local sightings doesn't mean this building has them. It's all really loose, vague assumptions. Costing op a large financial sum and time.

or yeah there might be ...... rats in China. So?

You won’t know if there have been local sightings because those reports aren’t available online.

None of this is as vague or random as you are trying to make out.

Rats aren’t a protected species