Canski Posted July 7, 2022 Share Posted July 7, 2022 Hi all, I am planning on demolishing an old dilapidated house and replacing it with 2 new builds one for myself and the other to sell. The exiting building had a history of a Brown Long Eared maternity roost. I have had a PRA and they found bat droppings in the loft 'which would indicate a possible maternity roost' and 2 further emergence surveys that showed no signs of bats entering or leaving the building. The second survey was on June 14th and they are reluctant to carry out the 3rd survey until 'well into July as a later maternity roost may set up again' On the second survey they placed a bat monitor in the roof void which is still there. It seems that I have no option but to wait for the 3rd survey and this is all well and good but I'd like to get my planning app in ASAP after the third bat survey. As part of the planning application I have added a 5.5 m x 3.5 m garden office that will initially be used as a site office / storage & drying room during the build before being tarted up for my own use after the build is complete. Last night I thought that instead of a flat roof I could build a pitched roof and this could be used in the bat mitigation prior to demolition and this design suggested on the planning application that will be submitted as soon as I get the bat report through. Has anyone else constructed one of these who can offer some advice as to the required heights / finishes to enable the brown long eared beauties (worst case scenario) to fly freely around and do their business. Thanks all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 8, 2022 Share Posted July 8, 2022 I think it depends on the bat survey people, I built 3 bat boxes into my garage roof rather than the house roof after approval from them, but the council still wanted bat boxes in the house but when I went to planning appeal the council were told they were not qualified to overturn the professional advise I received regarding bat roosts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesP Posted July 8, 2022 Share Posted July 8, 2022 7 hours ago, Canski said: Hi all, I am planning on demolishing an old dilapidated house and replacing it with 2 new builds one for myself and the other to sell. The exiting building had a history of a Brown Long Eared maternity roost. I have had a PRA and they found bat droppings in the loft 'which would indicate a possible maternity roost' and 2 further emergence surveys that showed no signs of bats entering or leaving the building. The second survey was on June 14th and they are reluctant to carry out the 3rd survey until 'well into July as a later maternity roost may set up again' On the second survey they placed a bat monitor in the roof void which is still there. It seems that I have no option but to wait for the 3rd survey and this is all well and good but I'd like to get my planning app in ASAP after the third bat survey. As part of the planning application I have added a 5.5 m x 3.5 m garden office that will initially be used as a site office / storage & drying room during the build before being tarted up for my own use after the build is complete. Last night I thought that instead of a flat roof I could build a pitched roof and this could be used in the bat mitigation prior to demolition and this design suggested on the planning application that will be submitted as soon as I get the bat report through. Has anyone else constructed one of these who can offer some advice as to the required heights / finishes to enable the brown long eared beauties (worst case scenario) to fly freely around and do their business. Thanks all We had a Brown long eared bat maternity roost in our existing dwelling. 2m minimum height was required and like for like was requested for the space so built a 12m x 6m garage, planning showed no interest in the size of the new garage which was a win. The underside of the roof had to be lined with bitumen F1 felt and entrance and exit points at each gable end. The south facing roof had to be filled with cement between the battens under the metal roof to retain the heat and a heater inside! Try for the garden office roof space. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 8, 2022 Share Posted July 8, 2022 12 minutes ago, JamesP said: and a heater inside! Really? I agree with retaining wildlife habitat etc but when in the wild did bats have heaters 🤷♂️. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted July 8, 2022 Share Posted July 8, 2022 I'm going through exactly this at the moment only with Natterjack bats. 'possible maternity roost' due to loads of poo. Actually 2-3 bats doing circuits each evening. The bats are awesome and we love watching them, but there's about 20 other perfectly suitable existing roosts around the farm for the little darlings. The heater has got to be taking the urine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesP Posted July 8, 2022 Share Posted July 8, 2022 28 minutes ago, Wil said: The heater has got to be taking the urine. Nope, and baffles, partitions, ceiling hatch and 21 fake hip rafters. The existing roof space had no insulation or even felt under the tiles. Lessons learnt if I have to do it all again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canski Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 Well I had the 3rd emergence survey last night and again no bats were seen entering or leaving the building. so 3 out of 3 no shows. There were a few fly pasts but there are a lot of bats down in the area probably due to a nearby man made lake so that was expected. The ecologists removed their bat detector from the loft and took some samples of droppings to be sent off to Warwick Uni for DNA analysis. Fingers crossed I am bat free but ....... Due to the previous bat report from 2016 where brown long eared had a maternity roost in the building the ecologists seem determined to find bats in my roof space. How much further will they go ? The guys on site also seem to be ordered to be tight lipped about their findings but say that it is good news for me. The only good outcome for me would be that there is no need to apply to natural England for a mitigation licence. I guess that I will have to wait for the report but am a little confused as to the potential measures required after 3 surveys where no bats have been seen. If the droppings are deemed to be old and the detector noted no activity surely I have no bats and should be able to crack on ? I was expecting the surveys and the delay for demolition but I am getting worried now that the ecologists are a bit miffed that they have seen no bats and will drag their heels producing the report. Has anyone else any experience with 3 no show surveys and what happens next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canski Posted August 3, 2022 Author Share Posted August 3, 2022 After 3 emergence surveys which showed no bats and a bat detector place in my loft for several weeks there was no sign of bats then I get this ,,,,what are the bat experts thoughts on this ?... After three bat dusk emergence surveys during optimal weather conditions and the optimal survey period in 2022, NO bats were recorded emerging from the building. No bat activity was recorded by the Anabat bat recorder left in the loft void. The droppings found in May 2022 were mostly old degraded droppings with some fresh droppings. Given the results of the further inspections we consider the fresh droppings were likely produced from bats prospecting the loft void early in the season. The bats may have decided that it was no longer suitable for a maternity roost (this may be because of light spill/habitat loss from the new surrounding housing development). Therefore, it could be argued that the building no longer contains an established bat roost and the early season bat droppings were likely produced from a bat(s) prospecting the loft void and it would appear now that they did not set up an established roost in the building this year. If we complete the report with the above evaluation, then its unlikely a EPS mitigation licence would be required. However, within the report we would need to state that there is a possibility of a late season maternity roost. The previous consultants recorded a bat maternity roost in the building during later season surveys, i.e. in August and September. Therefore, it is possible that a late season maternity roost could set up this year in the building. It is entirely possible that the county ecologist when reviewing the report and planning application may not be satisfied that a late season survey was not carried out. If this was the case then it might then be too late to carry out the later season survey and the county ecologist may state that this would need to be carried out next year. Therefore, as an absolute precaution and to cover all bases we would recommend that a later season survey, i.e. August, is carried out to absolutely make sure with certainty that there is no late season maternity roost present in the building (just a couple of years ago we carried out three surveys at an old farm site and it wasn't until the late August surveys when we recorded a maternity roost). We consider (i) we need to make sure we're not missing a late season maternity roost, (ii) we need to satisfy the planning county ecologist and (iii) we need to make sure we don't miss out the opportunity to complete all bat surveys this year. Dwayne has also stated that he would like to go to site this week to spread a dust sheet along below the ridge line to see if any fresh bat droppings are left on the sheet. This would be left in place for the entirety of August. In light of this, we propose the following: Complete the report by next week, including recommendation for late season survey for consideration by LPA Spread dust sheet along below the ridge line asap Undertake late season survey at end of August and subsequently issue to LPA as addendum to report Complete proactive works for protection of bats during early demolition works. This would fit in with your proposed programme. If you can confirm that this is in order, then I will ask Dwayne to arrange for the dust sheet to be provided and programme in the additional late season survey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canski Posted August 3, 2022 Author Share Posted August 3, 2022 money for old rope or a valid scenario ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kommando Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 And if some bats come prospecting but do not roost where do you stand then, another summer of surveys. Time for a hidden battery powered sonic bat repellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 8 hours ago, Canski said: money for old rope or a valid scenario ? It beggars belief, bats have more “human rights” than humans, unfortunately you have to do as you are told, it’s no wonder people rip roofs off before applying for planning to stop this nonsense. At least my environmentalist was reasonable and I built bat boxes in my workshop not house (just because they were in the area) but they have never been used). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 Absolute madness. I’m awaiting our 3rd survey. 3 bats in and out in the first one, 3 in the second but ‘droppings indicate possible maternity roost’. It just seems like absolute theft to keep going with all these surveys. We’ll do our third in a couple of weeks time and then get planning in. Am dreading what the response is, even though the impact to the bats is minor and only during the roof alteration works and the space goes back to ‘as existing’ as soon as we’ve finished! Sadly it does seem we’re beholden to the ecologists and their wish to charge for another survey! At least there’s no mention in yours about preventing the works altogether. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperPav Posted August 4, 2022 Share Posted August 4, 2022 You need to find a good and pragmatic bat "man" - the guy we used was excellent. Thorough and genuinely cared but not OTT. All solutions were pragmatic and open for discussion in terms of what would fit best with a proposal. It did help that our LA seemed to accept an expert's report and recommendations without questioning any of it. Whether this is commonplace or luck of the draw, I'm not sure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canski Posted August 4, 2022 Author Share Posted August 4, 2022 3 hours ago, SuperPav said: You need to find a good and pragmatic bat "man" - the guy we used was excellent. Thorough and genuinely cared but not OTT. All solutions were pragmatic and open for discussion in terms of what would fit best with a proposal. It did help that our LA seemed to accept an expert's report and recommendations without questioning any of it. Whether this is commonplace or luck of the draw, I'm not sure. You struck lucky. I thought the same until this latest email. Now it seems that they are trying to extract every last £ from me. I have never heard of anyone laying a sheet down to catch droppings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canski Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 On 03/08/2022 at 23:32, Canski said: After 3 emergence surveys which showed no bats and a bat detector place in my loft for several weeks there was no sign of bats then I get this ,,,,what are the bat experts thoughts on this ?... After three bat dusk emergence surveys during optimal weather conditions and the optimal survey period in 2022, NO bats were recorded emerging from the building. No bat activity was recorded by the Anabat bat recorder left in the loft void. The droppings found in May 2022 were mostly old degraded droppings with some fresh droppings. Given the results of the further inspections we consider the fresh droppings were likely produced from bats prospecting the loft void early in the season. The bats may have decided that it was no longer suitable for a maternity roost (this may be because of light spill/habitat loss from the new surrounding housing development). Therefore, it could be argued that the building no longer contains an established bat roost and the early season bat droppings were likely produced from a bat(s) prospecting the loft void and it would appear now that they did not set up an established roost in the building this year. If we complete the report with the above evaluation, then its unlikely a EPS mitigation licence would be required. However, within the report we would need to state that there is a possibility of a late season maternity roost. The previous consultants recorded a bat maternity roost in the building during later season surveys, i.e. in August and September. Therefore, it is possible that a late season maternity roost could set up this year in the building. It is entirely possible that the county ecologist when reviewing the report and planning application may not be satisfied that a late season survey was not carried out. If this was the case then it might then be too late to carry out the later season survey and the county ecologist may state that this would need to be carried out next year. Therefore, as an absolute precaution and to cover all bases we would recommend that a later season survey, i.e. August, is carried out to absolutely make sure with certainty that there is no late season maternity roost present in the building (just a couple of years ago we carried out three surveys at an old farm site and it wasn't until the late August surveys when we recorded a maternity roost). We consider (i) we need to make sure we're not missing a late season maternity roost, (ii) we need to satisfy the planning county ecologist and (iii) we need to make sure we don't miss out the opportunity to complete all bat surveys this year. Dwayne has also stated that he would like to go to site this week to spread a dust sheet along below the ridge line to see if any fresh bat droppings are left on the sheet. This would be left in place for the entirety of August. In light of this, we propose the following: Complete the report by next week, including recommendation for late season survey for consideration by LPA Spread dust sheet along below the ridge line asap Undertake late season survey at end of August and subsequently issue to LPA as addendum to report Complete proactive works for protection of bats during early demolition works. This would fit in with your proposed programme. If you can confirm that this is in order, then I will ask Dwayne to arrange for the dust sheet to be provided and programme in the additional late season survey. Well on the 4th and final survey the bats returned for the first time. It happened to be the only time when I wasn't there which makes me suspicious. Anyhow I have to go with the flow. Now I have to wait for planning which will be delayed due to staff shortages then apply for an EPS license. It looks like I will have to stay out laying bricks this winter after all. Project delayed 2 and a half months 😞 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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