Bishop of Ripon's new home

Feb 23, 2007

We were asked to survey the new home of the Bishop of Ripon on behalf of the Church Commissioners for England. We found a brown long-eared bat roost in the coach house, plus another roost in the boiler room of the main house. The Church has obtained planning permission for the development of the site into a new headquarters for the Bishop. They now need to wait while we gather information on the resident bats, and obtain a European Protected Species licence from DEFRA. We are working closely with the Church Commissioners and their architects to allow some work to go ahead while the surveying and licence application are on-going. The story hit the newspapers in February, but unfortunately contained several inaccuracies concerning the bat roosts - due to the timing of the intial survey (which was carried out in the winter), we have not yet been able to confirm the species of bat in the boiler room. They are most likely to be pipistrelles, but this is speculation at this point. We are now waiting for the bats to emerge from hibernation, whereupon we will begin to survey the roosts. The story may well hold some more surprises....
In terms of mitigation, a large area of the Coach House has been set aside for the brown long-eared bats, but plans for a replacement roost for the boiler room bats are at an early stage.

MAB Environment & Ecology Ltd. The Old Chapel, Knayton, Thirsk YO7 4AZ. Limited company no. 6504129.