**Bats** and building an indoor advice?

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HoneystarEquestrian

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If anyone can help me with some advice I would be very grateful! The property I am moving into currently has planning permission approved for change of farm buildings into 4 dwellings with carports. However we dont want to do this we are looking to convert the large barn into an indoor. Having seen the planning application for previous dwellings there appears to be bats in the barn, and app was approved as they were obviously following all the guidelines and putting a bat loft in one of the dwellings. Im assuming I would need to do similar in an indoor? Have any of you encountered this before? Im starting to worry this may not be too great! Thanks in advance :)
 
I would think that when you apply for planning for the indoor (do you have to do this as a change of use?) as long as you apply the same as they did in the original planning then you would be fine. A bat loft would be possible in an indoor, or one of the other buildings (depending on size and type of roost)

If you need licensing advice you would be well sorted to give these guys a call

http://www.bats.org.uk/

or the cheshire bat group for more help.

http://www.record-lrc.co.uk/c1.aspx?Mod=Article&ArticleID=G00020001
 
There are several licenced bat handlers on this forum ;)

They are a protected species, and rightly so, development is possible, but has to be done within the law, which the OP is keen to stay on the right side of.
 
HoneystarEquestrian said:
If anyone can help me with some advice I would be very grateful! The property I am moving into currently has planning permission approved for change of farm buildings into 4 dwellings with carports. However we dont want to do this we are looking to convert the large barn into an indoor. Having seen the planning application for previous dwellings there appears to be bats in the barn, and app was approved as they were obviously following all the guidelines and putting a bat loft in one of the dwellings. Im assuming I would need to do similar in an indoor? Have any of you encountered this before? Im starting to worry this may not be too great! Thanks in advance :)
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You would need PP, yes and you would almost certainly have to do exactly the same re bat loft. The downside is a new app might mean repeating all the bat monitoring which you have to pay for.

The upside is that the bat people might be keener on your proposed use if it meant Mr and Mrs Bat could fly round the indoor school!
 
Unless you're planning on doing any structural work other than flooring then I can't see how it would affect the bats. I think you would need to check planning (also check council tax) etc but I would have thought it would be less of a problem than converting to housing
 
If you are changing the internal structure of the building i.e where the bats are roosting. You may be required to put in some mitigation and provide somewhere for the bats to roost else where. Definatly get in touch with the local bat group to avoid getting yourself into trouble.
 
I think SpottedCat on here had something to do with bats; might be worth PMing her re legislation? Hope its not out of turn to suggest that!
 
SpottedCat is one of the licences bat people on here, but the OP is best off ringing the local bat group, who most likely will be already aware of the application, depending on their involvement in the original PP.

Or contact the licenced worked who should be named in any reports of the bat surveys, which the OP should be able to get access to :)
 
The thing is, depending on what you're doing to the barn, you may not need a licence at all - you may not need any further bat work doing. The timing/nature of the conversion/ types of bats using it/time of year the bats use it/how the bats use it/what you're planning to do to the structure all have a bearing on what you need to do.

My personal preference is to steer clear of local bat groups/wildlife trusts because they aren't always the most commercially minded people out there (and at the end of the day you want the planning to go through without you breaking the law but presumably without spending a fortune on bats!), and their knowledge of the planning system isn't always what it could be.

The consultant who did the original report might be a good place to start - depending on how good their report is!

A discussion with the planning officer and the council ecologist would be extremely useful - but again it's sometimes better to do these things via an intermediary such as a consultant ecologist or planning consultant.

I'm a consultant ecologist, but not terribly local to you (though I have and do work all over the country). My biggest bit of advice would be to spend money on a decent planning consultant - I know all about how the planning system works and I still wouldn't put in for planning without using one!

You might need to repeat the work - but again, you might well not need to at all depending on when it was done, and for what purpose/to what standards.

Bear in mind the survey guidelines changed last year, so anything supporting a new planning application done to the old guidelines may not be sufficient, even if it was done recently enough. Any survey work more than 2 years old won't normally be accepted by planning authorities.

I could bore you for hours about this - feel free to PM me if you want.
 
Deepandcrispandeven, bats don't properly hibernate, they just go into a sort of deep torpor. They will only fly when the temperature is above about 8 degrees or so (not sure what it is, could be 12 degrees) which is when night insects will fly. No point them flapping about and wasting precious energy if the insects aren't there! It's been so mild recently that I'm not surprised thet're up and about...my pond goldfish have started eating again (about 2 months too early) and there's been a couple of frogs singing love songs for weeks, thinking it was February! World's gone mad but bat's really do need our help x
 
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