a bat’s highway
Norwood High Street, London
Type | Digital month-long consultation
Client | London Festival of Architecture (2020)
Status | Completed June 2020
Collaboration | Jo Ferguson from the Bat Conservation Trust
Publication | High Street Task Force
Charitable product | a small bat pack
The Bat’s Highway is a project to raise bat awareness. We want to give tips and tricks to improve bat habitats and explain why they are such a cool, harmless, and key species that work as a bioindicators. When in 2020 A Small Studio, worked with the local BID Station to Station to deliver a month-long event called ‘Power of Norwood High Street’, to explore how underused high streets could be transformed, we found an exciting surprise thanks to Jo Ferguson, an urban bat ecologist: South London has a vast number of bat species and its location is crucial to help them commute between parks. That’s why we need to support them with green, lush journey full of pit-stops and give travelling bats several options for ‘Bed and Breakfast’.
What did we do?
This is a collaboration between Jo Ferguson and A Small Studio to develop the Bat’s Highway in a way that enables everyone to participate and get more active and engaged in environmental issues.
Jo Ferguson is an urban bat ecologist who has been involved with bat conservation in a voluntary and professional capacity for over 15 years. Jo’s more recent professional experience is as an ecological consultant specialising in providing surveys, mitigation and enhancement advice covering a range of development projects, including residential, commercial and transport. When she is not doing pro bono work for her local area’s green infrastructure strategy she is the Built Environment Manager for the Bat Conservation Trust. Jo is also a Full Member of CIEEM, a Volunteer Bat Roost Visitor and a member London Bat Group.
Bats as Bio-Indicators
Where their populations are doing well it is an indicator that the local environment is functioning properly. We used to just attach the benefits of this to the well-being of plants and animals in that area however we now realise just how closely aligned our own physical and mental well-being is to a healthy eco-system.
Pest Suppression
Bats are fantastic for pest suppression, in the US the agricultural community benefit into the billions of dollars from their hunting of crops pests. In the UK we have less of an understanding in terms of monetary value however even our smallest species (at around 4g!) can eat thousands of tiny insects a night!
18 Bat Species in the UK
You can reliably record around 6 bat species in central London. 12 have been recorded within the M25, so there are plenty of opportunities to engage people through activities such as bat walks in green spaces.
Bats and Covid-19
Undoubtedly bats are suffering from the Covid-19 crisis and the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) have done a document with facts about the relationship between bats and the pandemic.
West Norwood Bat Species
Common Pipistrelle | found in Brockwell Park, Dulwich Park and West Norwood Cemetery
Soprano Pipistrelle | found in Brockwell Park, Dulwich Park and West Norwood Cemetery
Noctule Bat | found in Brockwell Park, Dulwich Park and West Norwood Cemetery
Leisler’s Bat | found in Brockwell Park and Dulwich Park
Nathusius’ Pipistrelle | found in Brockwell Park and Dulwich Park
Daubenton’s Bat | found in Brockwell Park and Dulwich Park
Landscape and Urban Design for Bats and Biodiversity
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Planting species with a proven benefit to nature that will survive in harsh urban conditions – native plant species aren’t always resilient enough and therefore you can see green walls either that have failed because they haven’t been thought through properly (using native species without consideration for local climate) or that are hardy but have no benefit to nature.
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Creating stepping stones of habitat – is it easy for developers or property owners to feel like their footprint won’t make much difference if greened as it’s quite small, however, urban species are usually very mobile (birds, bats and winged insects) so thinking about greening in terms of corridor creation and linking existing patches of habitat helps nature benefit through dispersal, but also makes people feel part of something bigger.
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Having great landscaping is key for foraging for bats but including roosting habitat nearby increases the chances that bats can take advantage of this opportunity – this can be external or internal bat boxes or specially designed areas for them within buildings.
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Keeping habitats dark where possible – bats risk predation from species such as peregrine falcons in lit conditions, our slower flying species won’t risk entering lit areas to feed where insects are attracted to light sources, fast-flying species will sometimes risk it but at a fitness and competition cost – also light pollution is an issue for people so there are multiple benefits here!
Controlling the Impact of Artificial Lighting
Key Principles of Lighting Design
Keeping habitat valuable for bats dark is key to ensuring it reaches it potential, so here are the key principles of lighting design to avoid impacts on bats
When is light needed?
Consider when light is needed. Does it need to be on all the time or at the same brightness? Dimmed and triggered lighting can be really useful to ensure that excess light is kept to a minimum where it is required for safety only when people are present.
Institution of Lighting Professionals
This is the lighting guidance that the Bat Conservation Trust developed with the Institution of Lighting Professionals on mitigating the impacts of artificial lighting.
Using warm white LEDs
Avoiding the use of lighting with a blue-rich / UV content – it is harmful for insects as it attracts them from a wide area, many die at the light source, other are predated upon by opportunistic bats but these bats are putting themselves at risk of predation, slower species can’t even utilise this food source due to this risk
What light is needed and where?
Unnecessarily bright or uncontrolled lighting can spill onto habitats valuable for bats which may make them unsuitable for bats. Mapping habitat routes locally will help to understand where needs to be kept dark and also then controls for sky glow that impacts dark skies and nuisance lighting disturbing the public.
Intrusive lighting
Another useful document from the ILP focusses on intrusive lighting which is great for linking the benefits to bats of controlling excess light with the benefits to people