Bats and Nesting Birds: Wildlife Law on a Re-Roof

Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 punishes anyone who intentionally destroys, damages or takes an occupied nest, or one still under construction. Two ideas carry the whole offence. The first is intent: it is aimed at a deliberate act, not an accident nobody could have seen coming. The second is timing: a nest that is empty, abandoned and no longer in use sits outside that wording.

That is why a blanket warning about disturbing nests misses the point. The wording is about taking, damaging or destroying one, and only where the intent is there. It also explains why a roofer who spots a nest in the eaves and carries on stripping that slope is in a poor position. Once the nest is known about, pressing on is no longer an unforeseeable accident.

Can you get a licence to remove a nest for building work?

GOV.UK's guidance on wild birds is blunt on this: development and construction are not among the purposes for which a licence is offered. For a re-roof, that means you plan around an active nest and do not apply for permission to remove it. The section of roof concerned waits, or the programme is set so that the area is not opened while the nest is in use. Our re-roofing process page shows how a roof is sequenced slope by slope, which gives room to do exactly that.

Nest boxes, ledges and gaps under old eaves are where this comes up most, and they are easy to spot from the ground before anything is touched.

GOV.UK's bat guidance opens with a plain position: all bats, plus their breeding and roosting places, have full legal protection. Two separate pieces of legislation sit behind that, and they are worded differently, which matters to anyone doing roof work.

Regulation 43(1) of the Habitats Regulations 2017 makes it an offence where a person deliberately disturbs wild animals of a protected species, or damages or destroys a breeding site or resting place of such an animal. Look closely at the second limb. The word deliberately is missing from it. Damaging or destroying a roost is therefore a strict offence, and nobody has to prove the person meant to do it.

Section 9(4) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 adds two more, so that anyone who disturbs a bat, intentionally or recklessly, while it is occupying a structure or place it uses for shelter or protection, or who obstructs access to such a place. A roost in a roof space is exactly that kind of place.

Why does a roost matter more than a nest?

A nest is in use for a season and then it is finished. A roost can be used again and again, so the law protects the place as well as the animal, and that is where the strict wording sits. A homeowner cannot judge from the lawn whether a roost is there, and neither can a roofer from a ladder.

GOV.UK keeps a list of activities that may affect bats, and the list includes "repairing or replacing a roof". That single line is why a re-roof is one of the jobs where bats come into the conversation, even on a house that has never had a sighting.

The reasoning is simple. Old slates and tiles overlap, and the gaps beneath them, along the ridge, behind the fascia boards and in the gable ends, are sheltered spaces of the kind a small animal might use. Stripping a roof opens or removes exactly those spaces. A new roof with fresh underlay and tight eaves may close them for good, which is a reason to know what is there first.

Does every re-roof need a bat survey?

The guidance does not say so. What it says is that roof work can affect bats, and the sensible reading is that the risk is assessed before the work is planned. Whether a survey is needed is a decision for a qualified ecologist, rather than the roofer or the owner. A house with a known history of bats raises the question more than a house with none.

If you have seen bats around the house at dusk, or found anything in the loft that makes you wonder, mention it when you first ask for a survey of the roof. We would much rather know before the date is fixed than on the morning the scaffold goes up. It costs nothing to ask, and it keeps the programme honest.

The same goes for an older building with plenty of gaps under the covering. The more of those spaces there are, the more reason there is to ask the question early.

A bat survey is an assessment by someone qualified to recognise roosting evidence and to judge whether bats are likely to be using a building. It is specialist work, separate from roofing, and it is arranged by the owner, usually before the roofing begins.

GOV.UK has a guidance page headed bats, protection, surveys and licences, and it is the right place for anyone who wants to read the official position first hand. That page is where to find out what a survey involves and what happens if a roost is found. A roofer is not the person to give a verdict on it, and anyone who tells you with certainty that your roof has no bats, after a quick look from a ladder, is claiming more than a roofer can know.

What do we do on a Taunton re-roof?

When we survey a roof before pricing it, we look in the loft and along the eaves, ridge and gables, and we flag anything that might call for a specialist before stripping starts. On an old, rural or waterside house we raise the question early. If a survey is advised, the programme waits for it. That is a delay of days or weeks, and it is far cheaper than stopping a job halfway with the roof open and the weather turning.

If the answer from the specialist is that work can go ahead with precautions, those precautions go into the plan, and you are told what they mean for the dates and the order of work.

Our price comes after the survey and is built on the plan that results, including any pause for an ecologist. You see photos of the loft and eaves, so you know what we looked at and what we saw.

Once the covering is off, a roofer can come across a bat that nobody knew was there. The right response is simple and immediate: work stops in that area, the owner is told, and nothing is moved, sealed or cleared until someone qualified has advised. It is the only response consistent with the wording of the law, which forbids disturbing a bat in its roost and obstructing its way in.

This is also where the strict wording on roosts bites. A roofer who tidies up, seals a gap or fits a new fascia over a roost entrance has done more than fail to help. They may have damaged or destroyed a resting place, and for that limb of regulation 43 nobody has to show it was meant.

What does stopping work cost?

It costs time on the programme and some patience, and that is far lighter than the alternative. Because we strip and re-cover one slope before starting the next, a stop on one section does not have to halt the rest of the roof, and the open area is made watertight in the meantime. The details depend on what is found and where, so the extra cost cannot be set out in advance.

For the owner, the practical preparation is to allow a little slack in the dates, and to ask whoever is quoting how the job would be paused and covered if a protected species turned up. A roofer with a clear answer has thought about it. One who waves the question away has not.

Keep any report, photos and correspondence from a find like this. They are useful if the house is sold later.

None of this makes re-roofing impractical. It makes it a job where the first visit includes a few extra questions and the order of work is thought through. Here is how that looks in practice, written as a checklist you can hold a roofer to.

1. Tell the roofer at the first visit if you have seen bats, or if there are nests under the eaves.
2. Expect the loft, eaves, ridge and gable ends to be looked at, not just the covering.
3. Ask what the roofer will do if a bat or an active nest turns up during the job.
4. If a survey is advised, let it happen before the contract dates are fixed.
5. Keep the survey report, because it is a useful document if the house is sold.
6. Tell neighbours whose roofs adjoin yours if you know bats use the terrace, since a roost can span more than one house.

Does winter change any of this?

The statutes do not turn on a date in the calendar, and we do not lean on rules of thumb about seasons. What they turn on is whether birds are occupying or still constructing a nest, and whether a roost is there. Those are facts about your roof on the day, so the check happens on the day. Our page on re-roofing in winter covers the weather side of timing.

If rot turns up once the covering comes off, rotten roof timbers explains how that is handled. Your next step is to ask us for a survey of the roof and to mention bats or nests when you do, so the plan starts with them in it.