Habitats Directive (Bats and Churches)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of bats in churches and the impact of the EU habitats directive. The House will not be surprised that I wish to do so, given my role as the Second Church Estates Commissioner. At the outset, I want to make it clear that as far as I am concerned, bats are part of God’s creation. Indeed, there are three specific references to bats in the bible: Leviticus, chapter 11, verse 19; Deuteronomy, chapter 14, verse 18; and Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 20. Bats are part of the interdependence of God’s creation, but the numbers of some bat species in the UK are under pressure, which is why the EU habitats directive applies.

Bats are mammals, and one of the things I remember about mammals from my A-level zoology course is that they can be distinguished from other species by seven characteristics, two of which are that mammals defecate and urinate. The blunt reality is that bat faeces and bat urine have the potential to cause and do cause enormous damage in churches. English parish churches and cathedrals have significant holdings of monumental sculpture that date back to medieval England. Bat urine and faeces are extremely damaging to church monuments, as they are to other important artefacts in churches. Bat urine decays to form dilute ammonia, which is alkaline, chemically aggressive and can cause pitting, staining or etching on porous or polished material. Monumental brasses are particularly affected by the urine. It causes corrosion, evidenced in a disfiguring spotted appearance to the surface, as on the brass at the church at Elsing in Norfolk—one of the finest brasses in England.

Sculptured monuments are also being damaged by bat urine and faeces. The small number of medieval wooden effigies that survive in England are susceptible to damage to the pattern of the surface, which has been built up over centuries. Bat urine can also harm precious original paint and other surface finishes on historic monuments. For example, the church of St Peter ad Vincula at South Newington in my constituency has some very fine—almost unique—medieval wall paintings, which were spared by Thomas Cromwell’s men, but having survived the ravages of the Reformation, these irreplaceable parts of our national heritage are now threatened by bat urine. A build-up of bat faeces on the porous surface of monuments, especially marble and alabaster, is also problematic. The excreta hardens and is then subject to moisture, which is common in churches. Bat faeces can cause marked discolouration and other harm. Of course, it is possible for monuments to be protected to an extent by covering them with sheets of plastic, but that is unsightly, prevents them from being seen and enjoyed by the wider public, and can produce a microclimate that leads to other conservation issues.

Importantly, churches are places of worship; they are not field barns. I fully appreciate that one of the challenges for bats is that some of their natural habitat is threatened, but there has to be a balance. Churches are active community centres; indeed, the Church of England is making every effort to ensure that as many churches as possible can be centres for community use and community life, used throughout the week, not just for a few hours on a Sunday. Churches play host to a wide range of events, such as children’s playgroups and lunch clubs for the elderly, for which a domestic level of hygiene is expected.

Large internal roosts of bats have significant financial and human costs to those who worship in church buildings. The cost of cleaning, bat monitoring, delays to building work and bat mitigation measures are significant and must be funded by weekly church collections, at the expense of the other pressing demands of sustaining the church community and church buildings. The amount of monitoring and mitigation required, before even basic repair works can be undertaken, can act as a disincentive to the ongoing maintenance needed to retain a church building in good condition. Such delays are not only costly, but disheartening for church congregations and communities, who work hard to keep church buildings alive and fit for community use. Many of the churches affected by bat infestation are approaching a situation where their buildings may be unsustainable as places of worship. It is sometimes said that excluding bats from churches will render the bats homeless, but there is every chance that church congregations will find themselves homeless and without a place of worship, with listed buildings left unoccupied. That solution is surely undesirable for both bats and people.

The costs are not insignificant. St Hilda’s, Ellerburn, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has so far spent some £29,000 on mitigation repairs. Another typical example is St Andrew’s church in Holme Hale, Norfolk, which was forced to spend £2,600 in a single year on cleaning costs to clear up after its resident bats. The mitigation work associated with church repairs over three years for just one architect—just one architect!—totalled £57,000.

The situation is summed up in a letter sent to me after I had an exchange in the House with my hon. Friend the Minister. I posed the question:

“Do Ministers consider it acceptable that a number of historic English churches are being made unusable as a consequence of bat faeces and that mediaeval wall paintings and other historic monuments are being irretrievably damaged as a consequence of bat urine? Churches are not farm barns. They are places of worship and should be respected as such.”

The Minister responded:

“I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and share his intense frustration. I am glad to say that we are moving forward with one church in Yorkshire, where we think we may have found a resolution, and some churches in Norfolk. It cannot have ever been the intention of those who imposed this directive on us to limit the ability of people to worship in a church that has been there for centuries.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2013; Vol. 559, c. 1112.]

That exchange prompted a number of people to get in touch with me, including Mr Thompson from East Keal in Lincolnshire, who wrote:

“My local Church is St Helen’s Church, East Keal, and we like so many Churches have problems with bats. The pews have become damaged and the organ pitted with their urine and droppings. We are lucky in so far as we have a dedicated team who clean the Church weekly. The Church goes back to 1067. Recently we had the Tower blocked to keep the birds out. We however were required to make slots convenient to the bats to come into the Church. Having the bats means any work to be carried out on the roof can only be carried out during a small timescale. We now need a new roof and are trying to get a grant from English Heritage. We are trying to get a toilet and kitchen but in the interests of Health & Safety, we should be looking to have bats removed from the Churches.”

We will all have enormous sympathy with the congregation and the community of East Keal in Lincolnshire who are confronted with those challenges.

What are the policy issues here? Bats are a European protected species under the habitats directive 1994. In most circumstances, it is a criminal offence to disturb bats or to damage or destroy their breeding site or resting place deliberately. The criminal offence in English law, with a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment, is provided by regulation 41(1) of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010. Natural England has the power to grant a licence, the effect of which is that bats can be deliberately disturbed, or their breeding sites and resting places damaged or destroyed, without its being a criminal office. The existence of such a licence constitutes a defence to the criminal charge. There are four possible grounds on which Natural England can issue a licence. For the purposes of

“preventing serious damage to...property”,

a licence can be granted under regulation 53(2)(g). I would have thought that if bats were fouling a church, or otherwise making it, or parts of it, unusable, that would constitute “serious damage” to property.

I cannot see why a licence cannot be issued if it is for the purposes of preserving public health. A licence can be granted under regulation 53(2)(e) on such grounds, and if it can be shown that the use of a church, and the public health of the congregation and the general public, have been damaged by bats, it should be possible for Natural England to grant a licence.

There is also provision for granting a licence, if there are

“imperative reasons of overriding public interest including those of a social or economic nature and…of primary importance to the environment”.

In such circumstances a licence can be granted under regulation 53(2)(e). I would have thought that being able to use a church as a church, and being able to have churches not only as places of worship but increasingly for use by the wider community, was a matter of overriding public interest and importance. Moreover, as far as the second part of the test is concerned, when one has regard to grade I or grade II* listed churches, the removal of bats will make possible the preservation and enhancement of a listed building, which is of particular importance to the higher grades of such buildings, and to our national heritage.

I appreciate that Natural England cannot grant a licence under regulation 53(2) unless it is satisfied of two further matters. The first is that there is no satisfactory alternative under regulation 53(9)(a), but I cannot see that being a problem. Obliging churches and church congregations and communities to co-exist with bats is plainly not a “satisfactory alternative”.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am finding the debate very interesting. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many churches do co-exist with bats? Is he aware of the work of the Bat Conservation Trust and its national bat helpline, in helping churches to adapt to having a bat population? I appreciate that protecting both historical buildings and a protected species is difficult, but the trust does some good work.