Protected species - bats

Information and guidance about bats and their legal protections. 

Legislation

Bat populations have suffered a significant decline over the last 50 years. Today in Britain all bat species and their roosts are legally protected, by both domestic and international legislation.

It is a legal offence to:

1. Deliberately take, injure or kill a wild bat
2. Intentionally or recklessly disturb a bat in its roost or deliberately disturb a group of bats
3. Intentionally or recklessly obstruct access to a bat roost
4. Damage or destroy a bat roost 

Prosecution 

If you are found guilty of breaking these laws, you may face up to six months imprisonment or an unlimited fine. 

Encountering bats

If you're responsible for carrying out work within the borough, you must take into consideration the legal protections around bats. 

This applies to the following types of work:

• Construction
• Roofing work
• Property or building management
• Pest control
• Arboricultural work
• Heritage conservation
• Utility or transport asset management

Bat roosting

Bats utilise a variety of habitats for ‘roosting’. A roost is a place of shelter where bats eat, sleep, rest, breed or hibernate. Some of the places commonly used by bats for roosting are described below.

Buildings

Bats utilise many different spaces in a range of buildings and will commonly be found:

• Behind roof tiles and cladding
• Within cavity walls
• In loft spaces
• In box soffits
• Within gaps in brickwork such as window lintels, weep holes and missing mortar

Structures

Bridges offer excellent shelter to bats, particularly where there are deep gaps within the masonry. Bridges spanning suitable bat habitat such as watercourses are particularly important. Natural or artificial rockery and walls may also provide deep crevices within which bats can roost.

Trees

Many bats roost in naturally formed features in trees, such as woodpecker holes, rot cavities, stress fractures and behind loose bark.

Underground sites

Underground sites such as ice houses, tunnels and cellars may be utilised as hibernation sites during the winter.

Works that might impact bats

When planning projects affecting any place which could be used for roosting, potential impacts to bats must be considered at an early stage to avoid any possible contravention of the law.

Such projects might include, but are not limited to:

• Roofing works – retiling, waterproofing, installation of insulation or lining, replacement of timbers, timber treatment
• Pest control – sealing of entrance points to buildings, treatment of timbers, application of pesticides, placement of traps
• Construction – demolition or modification of buildings and structures
• Arboricultural work – felling or remedial work to trees
• Property management – scaffolding, building upgrades, installation of new lighting, vegetation clearance, repointing, replacing brickwork
• Heritage conservation – maintenance and repair of old buildings or structures, including churches
• Asset management – maintenance of structures, buildings, tunnels, trees and bridges

Breathable roofing membranes (BRM)

Breathable roofing membranes made from spun-bond polypropylene/polyethylene filaments should not under any circumstances be installed into a roof that is used by bats, as they can become entangled in the long fibres.

Adhesive insect traps

Sticky traps of any kind must never be used where bats are known to roost or could be present. Many cases exist of bats getting caught and dying in these traps.

Further information

To find out more about the legal protections around bats and how to organise a bat consultant, free information is available from the following:

• Bat Conservation Trust
• The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management