Fwd: The Bat Advice Service (BAS) – Reforming Natural England’s advice for householders

[Mike Priaulx]

Hi all, any bat enthusiasts might be interested that the government are reforming the Bat Advice Service, see this blog post here:

https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2026/02/24/the-bat-advice-service-bas-reforming-natural-englands-advice-for-householders/

From my understanding, this is at least partly positive, modernising the service to focus on online contact (it is currently a telephone helpline), and providing the service using professionals at Natural England rather than volunteers at Bat Conservation Trust, to reduce delays. (If anyone is an expert on this and knows better, please say!)

In the context of other government planning reforms, we should probably be sceptical about whether the changes will in fact enable reduced standards (see this recent article about Labour's nature plans which I think is a reasonable summary, maybe especially relevant given last night's by-election result:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/25/lost-species-released-england-labour-greens-election-threat ),

but we will need to wait for further details to find out.

All the best,

Mike

Member of SLN Swifts & Planning Group

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: GOV.UK blogs <gov.uk.bl...@notifications.service.gov.uk>

Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 2:49 PM

Subject: The Bat Advice Service (BAS) – Reforming Natural England’s advice for householders

To: <islingt...@gmail.com>

A new post, “The Bat Advice Service (BAS) – Reforming Natural England’s advice for householders ” has just been published on the Natural England blog.

By Matt Heard, National Delivery Director In this blog we explain how we are reforming the Bat Advice Service, the free support available to householders and places of worship who have bat roosts in their buildings. We cover what the current …

Read the new post: https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2026/02/24/the-bat-advice-service-bas-reforming-natural-englands-advice-for-householders/