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Bat roosts in hedges and trees: the legal check before any work in Gravesend

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 nesting-season rule covers birds. Bats run on an entirely separate legal framework, with different Acts, a different enforcement body, and crucially, no equivalent of the March-to-August calendar window. Bat roosts are protected at every time of year, whether or not bats are present when the work happens. Before cutting, significantly reducing, or removing any mature hedge or tree in Gravesend where bat roost features are visible, there is a specific legal check to complete first.

What the law says

All UK bat species are fully protected under two overlapping pieces of legislation:

• The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 (the Habitats Regulations), Regulation 43: it is a criminal offence to deliberately capture, injure or kill a bat; to deliberately disturb a bat (including impairing its ability to survive, breed, rear young, hibernate or migrate); or to damage or destroy a breeding site or resting place of a bat. The offence of damaging or destroying a roost applies even if no bats are present at the time: roosts are protected as places, not just when bats are actively using them.
• The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Schedule 5: bats are listed as protected animals. It is an offence under section 9 of that Act to intentionally or recklessly disturb any bat while it is occupying a structure or place used for shelter or protection, or to obstruct access to such a place.

Together these two regimes create a continuous, year-round protection for every bat roost in England. A roost discovered at the start of winter, when bats are hibernating and not in active use of a summer colony site, is still protected. A summer maternity roost is still protected in February when no bat has visited it for months. The physical roost location carries legal protection independent of whether bats are present on any given day.

Penalties under the Habitats Regulations: conviction in a magistrates' court carries imprisonment of up to six months or a fine, or both. Offences are investigated by the police and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service, and Natural England issues the licences that authorise otherwise-prohibited work.

When does a bat roost concern apply to hedge or tree work?

Not every hedge job in Gravesend carries bat roost risk. The concern arises when the work involves one or more of these features:

• Mature trees within or alongside the hedge line, particularly those with cracks, fissures, loose or peeling bark, woodpecker holes, ivy coverage, or cavities in the main stem or larger branches. These are the features most likely to support roosting bats.
• Dense, well-established hedgerows of hawthorn, blackthorn or mixed native species that have developed substantial woody structure, particularly where the hedge has not been cut for several years and has grown out into thick, interlocking stems.
• Hedges adjacent to known bat foraging habitat: water, woodland edge, or established gardens. Bats follow linear features such as hedgerows and tree lines to travel between roosts and feeding areas. A hedge that runs along a watercourse or connects to a wooded area is more likely to be on a regular bat flight line, and trees along it are more likely to be checked by bats as potential roost sites.
• Older brick or tile structures incorporated into a hedge line: a garden wall with pointing gaps, an old barn or outbuilding abutting the hedge, or a gate pier with mortar gaps can all provide bat roost access. Hedge work that requires working alongside or disturbing these structures falls within the same roost-protection regime.

Routine trimming of a young, thin, recently-planted boundary hedge, with no significant woody structure and no mature trees within it, carries negligible bat roost risk. The concern is with substantial, mature hedge and tree work.

Step 1: the preliminary roost assessment (PRA)

A preliminary roost assessment, commonly called a PRA or bat scoping survey, is the first formal stage of the bat survey process. It is a daytime inspection, carried out by a qualified bat ecologist, to determine whether the hedge, tree or structure proposed for work has features that could support a bat roost. The PRA does not require a bat licence to carry out and can be conducted at any time of year.

The ecologist inspects the proposed work area and assigns a roost potential rating to each feature: negligible, low, moderate or high. That rating then determines what, if anything, happens next:

• Negligible potential: the work can proceed without further bat survey. The PRA report documents the basis for the negligible conclusion.
• Low potential: a watching brief by a suitably qualified person during the work itself may be acceptable, or a single dusk emergence or dawn re-entry survey may be recommended. The PRA report will set out what is needed.
• Moderate or high potential: further surveys are required before any work begins. These are typically dusk emergence surveys (observing bats leaving a roost at dusk to confirm presence and species) and/or dawn re-entry surveys (confirming bats returning to the roost site at dawn). These surveys can only be done during the main bat activity season, typically May to September with limited scope in April and October, and the number of survey visits required depends on the roost potential rating and the species likely to be present. Survey visits cannot usefully be carried out during winter months when bat activity is at its lowest.

Step 2: if bats are found, the EPS licence route

If emergence or re-entry surveys confirm that bats are using the feature proposed for work, a European Protected Species (EPS) mitigation licence must be obtained from Natural England before any work proceeds. The licence authorises what would otherwise be a criminal offence under the Habitats Regulations 2017, on the basis that the work is unavoidable (there is no satisfactory alternative that would avoid disturbing the roost) and that the work will be carried out under approved mitigation measures that protect bats during the activity and replace any lost roost features.

EPS licences are issued by Natural England. The application must be prepared by a licensed bat ecologist and must be accompanied by a mitigation method statement setting out how the work will be done, what bat-friendly timing constraints will apply, what alternative roost features will be provided (such as bat boxes installed on replacement planting or on a nearby structure), and how the outcome will be monitored. The application process takes time: confirming current timescales with Natural England or with the bat ecologist handling the survey is the right step once bats are confirmed present. Starting work without an EPS licence in place is not a risk management option: damaging or destroying a roost is an offence even if that was not the aim, and both the person carrying out the work and the person commissioning it can be prosecuted.

Step 3: the nesting-season check runs in parallel

Gravesend and Gravesham: where the bat roost risk is higher

Mature hedgerows in the villages south and east of Gravesend, including Higham, Chalk, Shorne, Cobham and Meopham, often run alongside field boundaries and watercourses that are prime bat foraging routes. The hedges in these locations are frequently old enough to have developed the woody overstory and mature standard trees that provide the best roosting features. The chalk and clay countryside of the North Downs scarp above Meopham carries a dense woodland-and-hedgerow network: larger trimming or removal jobs in this landscape are more likely to need a PRA than a garden boundary hedge in a Gravesend terrace.

In the built-up areas of Gravesend and Northfleet, the main bat concern is the established garden tree within or alongside a hedge: a mature oak, ash or willow that has been part of the garden landscape for decades, and that has developed the crevice and cavity features that lesser pipistrelles, common pipistrelles or brown long-eared bats use as summer or transitional roost sites. These individual trees, wherever a hedge runs below or alongside them, are worth raising with me before any job that involves their significant pruning or removal.

Bats also follow river corridors and other linear features, so hedge and tree lines that connect to the Thames or to wooded areas are worth a closer look than an isolated garden hedge.

Sources: Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, Regulation 43; Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 9 and Schedule 5; Bat Conservation Trust, Bat Surveys for Professional Ecologists: Good Practice Guidelines (4th edition); Natural England European Protected Species licensing guidance; Bat Conservation Trust, Bats and Trees guidance note.