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Bellway Homes gets largest fine ever issued for wildlife crime
Housebuilder Bellway Homes has been ordered to pay the largest fine ever issued by a UK court in relation to wildlife crime after damaging a site inhabited by bats.
After admitting guilt to having “damaged or destroyed a breeding site or resting place of a wild animal” on Tuesday at Woolwich Crown Court, the firm was ordered to pay a fine of £600,000 with further costs of more than £30,000. Bellway said it would also make a voluntary donation of £20,000 to the Bat Conservation Trust.
Bellway Homes carried out demolition work at the site in Artillery Place, Greenwich, in south east London in 2018, despite the presence of bats being documented at the site the previous year. In the UK, all bats are a European Protected Species. The company had been notified in planning documents that it would need to obtain a Natural England European Protected Species licence and mitigate any potential damage before carrying out wo
Housebuilder hit with record £600,000 wildlife fine for destroying single bat roost
The company bulldozed a building in Woolwich, London, without removing the bat roost first
11 December 2020 • 4:08pm
A pipistrelle bat. The £600,000 fine dwarfs the previous record for disturbing a bat roost, of £18,820, given in 2019.
Credit: PA
Destroying the home of a single bat has landed a housing company with a £600,000 fine, the largest ever for a wildlife crime.
Bellway Homes bulldozed a former car showroom in Woolwich, south east London, for a housing development, without getting permission from Natural England to disturb the soprano pipistrelle roost.
A bat survey carried out in June 2017 observed a single bat returning to a day roost in the building between a window and fascia board.