Ellendale Environmental secures a mitigation licence for a Lesser Horseshoe bat maternity roost
Ellendale Environmental has been successful in obtaining a Natural England Development Licence for a Lesser Horseshoe bat maternity roost on behalf of our clients.
The bat roost, identified in an old coach house in Wiltshire, was surveyed by Ellendale Environmental ecologists who counted 60 lesser horseshoe bats emerging and returning to roost in the building.
The Lesser Horseshoe bat is one of the smallest British mammal species – about the size of a plum with their wings folded. They have grey-brown fur and get their name from the distinctive horseshoe-shaped nose-leaf,
which they use in echolocation.
Lesser and greater horseshoe bats hang freely by their feet and will twist their bodies round to look about them before flying off. Lesser horseshoe bats hunt close to the ground, rarely more than five metres high and
often snatch their prey off stones and branches. They sometimes take larger prey to a perch to consume it.
The UK population of lesser horseshoe bats is approximately 15,000. The lesser horseshoe bat is protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 and is a European Protected Species under Annex IV of the European Habitats Directive. They will also be listed as a Priority Species under the UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework.
Our clients want to convert the existing coach house building to a residential property. A condition survey undertaken in 2017 identified that the building may have been an earlier agricultural structure that was enlarged by adding extensions to both the east and wet elevations. These extensions do not have adequate foundations and were not tied into the original building.
Subsequently the extensions are subsiding, and cracks were visible around the east and west elevations. The bat roost identified is located on the western elevation, and surveys identified cracks in the walls and a deteriorating condition internally.
The licence, granted by Natural England, enables the client to progress with their pans to renovate the building whilst maintaining the roost space in the existing building, securing it for the future. Approximately 40m3 of dedicated
bat loft will be made available to the bats with a dedicated access/egress with dimensions of 300mm (w) x 200mm (h) that will be set into the northern (rear) elevation, the darkest side of the building with access to the surrounding land. Horseshoe bats require an access through which they can fly as, unlike the other species of bats in the UK, they are unable to crawl.
In addition, bat boxes and alterations to the roof will be undertaken to provide additional roosting spaces for common and soprano pipistrelle bats and brown long-eared bat species.
Monitoring of the roost found that the bats return in late April/early May and leave later in October. It is anticipated that the mitigation and compensation provided will increase the likelihood of bats roosting throughout the year and will increase the number and species of bats present.
We are incredibly pleased to have been part of this exciting project that will help protect one of the UKs most vulnerable bat species, providing a dedicated roost space long into the future. We look forward to working with our client and monitoring the success of the roost.
Coach House to be converted