{"id":713801,"date":"2026-07-27T15:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/713801\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T15:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:39:08","slug":"construction-firm-fined-over-deaths-of-150-bats-in-lochmaben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/713801\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction firm fined over deaths of 150 bats in Lochmaben"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A construction firm which admitted the reckless destruction of a colony of 150 bats has been fined \u00a317,000. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dumfries Sheriff Court heard that the soprano pipistrelle bats died when holes they were using to enter and exit their roost were blocked. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">City Building (Glasgow) LLP carried out the building works at 1 Blacklocks Vennel in Lochmaben, Dumfries and Galloway, during the summer of 2023. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The court was told that it was the biggest case of its kind in Scotland, and one of the biggest in the UK. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Soprano pipistrelle bats are among the most common and widespread in the UK. They have brown fur, black wings and a black face.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Their head and body measures up to 4.5cm (1.7in) and they have a wingspan of up to 23cm (9in). <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The works took place between 14 June and 17 July 2023, and resulted in the deaths of dozens of bats, many of them young, the court was told. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The firm was working on a property used for sheltered housing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The counsel for the defence said City Building felt deep regret for its action, and training courses had been put in place to prevent any repeat breaches. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A construction firm which admitted the reckless destruction of a colony of 150 bats has been fined \u00a317,000.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-713801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}