Bat Roost Guides
With a rapid decline in bat populations, all Britain’s 16 species - eight of them can be found in Cumbria - and their roosts are now legally protected.
Bats depend on buildings to house them and return to the same place every year. They use existing gaps or holes for access, don’t have nesting materials or nibble through capes, wires or insulation. In short, bats do not cause damage.
Bats like warm, dry places which are not too dirty. They use many parts of buildings from cavity walls to ridge beams, under slates or ridge tiles to inside stone walls.
Bat roost design guides
Natural England (formerly English Nature) have produced some useful leaflets with diagrams featuring access slates, 'bat bricks' and designs for cavity walls to encourage bat roosts in new or renovated buildings:
Bat Roost Design Guides (opens Document Library)
Bat facts
- Pipistrelles weigh much the same as a 10p coin, but eat as many as 3000 insects a night
- Bats live for up to 25 years
- They only have one baby a year
- Bats move roosts as the weather changes
Useful links
(all open in new window)
- The Bat Conservation Trust
- Cumbria Bat Groups - including Westmorland and Furness Bat Group and Cumberland Bat Group
- Natural England
- Virtual Fauna of Lakeland
- Wildlife In Cumbria
- Wealth of Wildlife
