{"id":819977,"date":"2026-10-31T17:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T17:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/819977\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T17:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T17:42:10","slug":"concern-potential-housing-site-in-exmouth-is-home-to-rare-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/819977\/","title":{"rendered":"Concern potential housing site in Exmouth is home to rare bat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bats.org.uk\/about-bats\/what-are-bats\/uk-bats\/barbastelle\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bat Conservation Trust, external<\/a>, Barbastelle bats are a &#8220;rare and distinctive species&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hart produced a pair of toy bats from his pockets at the council meeting as he told of his discovery of the dead bat, and said: &#8220;Go on, vote for knowingly promoting the destruction of habitat of this endangered species.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said the bat was &#8220;very susceptible to disturbance, loss of habitat and light pollution&#8221;, stating he believed the council was &#8220;ignoring the evidence&#8221; that pointed to the sensitivity of Exmo_20.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s your irresponsible behaviour that is promoting the destruction of habitat which led to the need for the habitat&#8217;s regulations,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Exmo_20 proposal is for a neighbourhood of new homes, and the site is near Grade II-listed St John in the Wilderness Church and heaths.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The council is working to finalise its draft local plan and while a site&#8217;s inclusion does not guarantee planning permission, it means developers may propose schemes there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the Bat Conservation Trust, external, Barbastelle bats are a &#8220;rare and distinctive species&#8221;. Hart produced a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-819977","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\/819977","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=819977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}