Oh dear, @NorfolkCC still doesn’t seem to be getting this right. (This is re: the new dual carriageway they’re planning through woodland that is part a significant colony of rare, protected barbastelle bats)
A geeky bats THREAD for those into such things https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/ndr-western-link-bat-survey-suspended-after-late-intervention-1-6744125

So, Norfolk County Council needs to assess the barbastelle bat population in the woods where it has decided to build this major new road. (Remarkable they didn’t do it before selecting the chosen route, but it seems that’s how these things work!)

I’m told the various landowners gave them permission to survey (trap and tag) the rare barbastelle bats in their woods, just not right now, during the sensitive weeks when barbastelles are heavily pregnant or their pups are very young.

The council’s response? What one landowner described as “the dirty deed”: to serve section 324 notices on landowners by hand at the end of last Friday saying surveys would start that weekend (on Sunday eve)! https://twitter.com/woodsringland/status/1281588376118927361

Section 324 notices are a sure-fire way of getting people’s backs up. Especially with the notice period over a weekend. Looks and feels like bullying tactics. The notice basically says ‘we're coming on your land & if you try to stop us you can be prosecuted/fined’. Heavy-handed!

But the real point here is not WHETHER the council or their contractors can come on the land – they can, woodland owners will give permission for them to survey + understand the importance of the woods for rare barbastelles – but WHEN they do it.

The council and its contractors ( @WSP_UK / @DWEcology) were told by @WildWingsEcol, an expert at @UEA and The Norfolk Barbastelle Study Group that it could be harmful to trap and tag bats in mid-July. So why didn’t they listen?

It was only the intervention of @NaturalEngland at (almost literally) the 11th hour to remind the Council and their contractors of their obligations that made them call it off (not following the conditions of the licence is a criminal offence).

Or in the words of Norfolk County Council: “Natural England revised and reissued the licence for the surveys with a new condition which meant we could no longer proceed from mid-July.” But I’m not sure that’s the full picture or gives the right impression...

I haven’t seen the Council’s paperwork from Natural England but the standard bat licence says licensees should “avoid capturing heavily pregnant bats or bats that are suckling juveniles”, specifically ruling out mid-June to mid-July.

So, to be fair, the standard licence would technically allow the Council & its contractors to trap and tag bats from mid-July BUT in this case doing so would go against a key principle of the licence, which is to avoid catching bats that are still feeding young pups at this site.

The standard licence also says “the licensee should liaise with the appropriate local bat groups or licensees”. In doing so they’d have been aware that there may be barbastelles still “suckling juveniles” at this Norfolk site in mid-July. And remember, the Council was informed:

All Natural England really did was reword the conditions to reiterate that the licensee mustn’t risk capturing any bats that have just had pups - but that was ALWAYS a condition of the licence! So nothing really changed…except that the Council finally had to concede & back down.

The question now is whether @NorfolkCC will do the right thing, engage and liaise appropriately and wait until the middle of August, which is when the landowners have given them permission to carry out the surveys in their woods. No more "dirty deeds"?

The Council might be able to regain some trust if they do hold off until then. But maybe their development timetable is more important than working with the landowners and acting in the best interest of these rare bats? Hopefully not!

And if you’re interested in the background to this, here’s an #InsideOutEast film I made about the Council’s form on this incl previous failures to protect rare bats on the last road they built & misleading claims about their failed mitigation measures. https://vimeo.com/user5103208/review/438823708/c6df1df575