Why builders go through roof about bats in the attic

With the soaring cost of inflation-busting labour and building materials, homeowners embarking on renovation projects are having to stretch their budgets before even planting a spade into the ground.

- ALEX ROSS

But for some, the bills for even the smallest jobs, such as roof repairs or window re-glazing, are delivering crippling financial surprises due to laws in place protecting the UK’s 18 species of bat.

The issue came under the spotlight last November with the £100m spend on a bat tunnel by HS2, but it is not just overbudgeted rail schemes that are impacted by the preservation of the flying mammals.

Volunteer groups, homeowners and landowners are paying out thousands of pounds for bat surveys alone before even acting on any costly measures to protect the animals as part of a planning system the new Labour government wants to reform.

And while conservationists insist rules not to harm the habitat of bats are required to protect an important player in the country’s ecosystem, others claim the process has been become bureaucratic, and costly.

Examples of work include the team behind the heritage Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in the Lake District constructing a 4.6-metre-high bat roosting tower after up to 47 bats were found roosting in an old station building to be demolished.

In Bath, in Somerset, a landowner paid nearly £250,000 on a windowless bat house before demolishing a farmhouse, while on an existing industrial estate in Wrexham, north Wales, a developer had to install four bat boxes before building three new units.

Bats are protected by UK law, and so any project where the animal may roost, eat or travel warrants a survey costing around £500 from a visiting qualified ecologist. That can include minor work as small as window replacements and re-wiring.