'Absurd': Packham lambasts Reeves's scapegoating of bats in shake-up to cut red tape

Chris Packham Naturalist

- Helena Horton

Bats are being "scapegoated" by Rachel Reeves, Chris Packham has said, after they were cited by the chancellor as a cause of sluggish economic growth.

Reeves recently said she wanted businesses to "focus on getting things built and stop worrying about the bats and the newts", and this week the press release announcing her shake-up of all the UK's regulators mentioned bats six times. A very niche directive to Natural England, the nature watchdog, to take advice from the Bat Conservation Trust out of a planning document, became the linchpin of Reeves's deregulation plan.

"It's absolutely absurd," says the broadcaster and nature campaigner, "I am always someone who likes to deal with the facts so I would really like to know over the course of a year how many planning applications are completely refused because of bats, as a percentage of all those across the country. I am going to hazard a guess that it would be a fraction of 1%."

So how did this small mammal become such a lightning rod in planning issues? Bats began to be protected under EU law in 1992, when the UK was part of the bloc, under the habitats directive. This legislation protects threatened animals across Europe including dormice, great crested newts, otters, water voles and stag beetles. It means their habitat must not be disturbed without mitigation, and the successful passing of the directive was long fought for and celebrated by environmentalists.