Bat lovers love bats, but they love their bats--t power over us even more

Regulars of the southbound motorway services area of Taunton Deane on the M5 are mournful. The motorists who’ve been served there so miserably since the place opened in 1976 had thought that 2024 was their year. After decades of awful food, weak coffee and overpriced fuel, things were looking up. The owners, Roadchef, had put in an application to renovate the main building and add an extension which included a Leon, that fresh and flavourful food brand created by campaigner Henry Dimbleby in 2004.

All was looking good until a planning officer mentioned the “b”-word that sends a shudder down the spine of every architect, surveyor and builder. No one, it seems, had bothered to check the belfry for bats.

“It is not possible to ensure there will be no harm to protected species as a result of the development,” said planning officer Gareth Clifford.

People in planning love saying no, especially when it comes to bats. Turns out that those long-eared, scary things are actually more protected than the black rhino.

The latest annual report from the National Bat Monitoring Programme states that bat species in the UK have either increased or stabilised. So that’s a big hurrah for the bats. Except, I’m not so sure this whole thing is really about bats.

I’ll never forget seeing the face of our builder, Andy, one morning. Had someone died? Or worse, had he lost a round of golf? “I’ve seen a bat,” he said. We were considering a planning application on our barn to progress it from a building that will soon collapse to a handy dwelling for granny. Wholly ignorant about bat conservation, I ploughed on with emails and meetings with a surveyor and architect. I soon realised that this was a one-track path to expensive futility.

Bats like old buildings. They also like new buildings. In fact they like all sorts of buildings. But mainly they like spaces that are undisturbed and dark. So, as with moths, if you haven’t been in there for a while, they’ll be in there. And when there’s the mere hint of a bat and you utter the word “planning”, steel yourself for the bat survey.

Don’t even contemplate dodging any of this. For if you build, threaten, endanger, disturb, or so much as give a bat a funny look, and you get busted, you’ll get a fine of £5,000 per bat and could go to prison for six months.

So, here come the ecologists – along with a slew of warnings, precautions and invoices. Remember, this is a closed shop. The bat people know everything and you know nothing. When it comes to bats, the bat protectors hold all the cards.

Surveys must take place between May and September when the things are up and about (a fabulous computersays-no way of enforcing at least a healthy six-month delay to your plans). Ecologists, with a multitude of letters after their names, sent detailed instructions of their pending arrivals and plans, together with absurd and strict timings. “We’ll be on site at 18.40hrs, start surveying at 19.13hrs, sunset is at 19.28hrs and we’ll finish at 20.58hrs.” I’m quoting from correspondence.

They arrived in a white van and tumbled out dressed like ghostbusters. Equipment dangled from every limb, head torches were on. They carried ladders, adjustable mirrors, endoscopes, close-focusing binoculars, thermal-imaging cameras, listening and recording devices. They ran about the place with the excitement of Tony Robinson on a

dig. They came several times, in between carrying out “biological desk studies” and “batdropping DNA analysis”.

My God, did they have fun. And, my God, did they charge for this: £3,550 plus VAT, plus £75 to survey each bat dropping and 60p per mile each for the gang to travel back and forth.

“The final survey went very well,” they emailed, excitedly. Or rather it went very badly from my perspective. The place was teeming with bats of varying species, from long-eared

Give a bat a funny look and you could go to prison for six months

Myotis daubentonii, to barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) and common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus).

The upshot was, yes, you can have a bat licence (another thousand quid or so), you can do your barn conversion, but you need to add a bat maternity unit, which would cost £125,000.

So, like Roadchef, we raised the flag of surrender. Victory was won by the Socialist Dictatorship of Batville.

They had successfully lorded it over us, quashed our dream of a granny flat and thus ensured themselves jolly nice salaries, excellent expenses and the use of untold, unquestionable, power. Which as bat populations soar, nice old barns crumble, and grotty service stations get grottier is just batsh–t crazy.