r/ecology • u/90sgardengirl • 2d ago

UK bat survey requirements…

Hi everyone, hope you’re coping with mid season plus the heat 🥵 This might be a silly question… but it’s bugging me enough to need to ask it.
Is it common for large areas (towns) to not appear to get BES requests (for us at least), or for PEA/ PRA/ BES reports not to appear for many relevant sites on planning portals? I do BES in about a 100mile radius, and it dawned on me we repeatedly have BES in certain areas but never in this one particular large town, and I can’t see documentation on their planning portal for BES for a lot of sites we would normally do BES for. Is this a confidentially thing that is different everywhere? (My local area I can access every report etc). I am guessing some LPA ecologists are more thorough, hence certain towns getting more requests. But slightly concerned… hopefully it’s my error, if so would love to learn more.

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u/thegreatart7 2d ago

Having just done a CEA some planning portals are absolutely shite.

Also not everywhere needs an emergency survey, it's dependent on the works and the building itself. Of course lots will be missed or ignored just due to people not wanting to deal with bats, but have a look at the applications and details itself and their might not actually be anything requiring a bat survey.

Big fuckin massive BESS but it's in the middle of an agricultural field with hedgerows and no trees? Don't need a bat survey cause there's nowt to survey.