The short answer
Stop work on that stretch of the roof and ask for advice before anything else is disturbed. Bats are protected by law, and so are the places where they breed and rest. Roof repair is work that can affect them. A licence may or may not be required, depending on the work and on what is found. Leave the bats where they are and cover nothing over.
First steps when a bat appears
Stop work on that section of the roof, and send the crew to another task. Do not pick the bat up, do not carry it somewhere that looks safer, and do not block the gap it came from. A bat that flies out at dusk may have a roost to come back to, and one found in daylight may simply be sheltering where it always has.
Tell whoever runs the job, in writing if you can. Take photographs of where the bat was seen, any droppings on the loft insulation or beneath the ridge, and staining on timbers or the wall below. Those details help an ecologist work out what is going on.
Work can often carry on elsewhere on the building, away from the find. That is for whoever is advising you to decide, and it should be settled before anyone climbs back up. If the roof is open and rain is due, a temporary cover that leaves the bats' access alone is something to agree with the advisor and not to improvise.
On our own jobs a find like this changes the plan. The survey notes record it, the photographs go with the file, and the written price is revisited once the advice is known. Nobody should be pressed to finish just because a scaffold is already standing.
What the law protects
GOV.UK states that bats are fully protected by law, and so are the places where they breed and rest. It counts roof repair and replacement among the works that may affect bats. That is why a bat find is taken seriously on any roof job, whatever the size of the contract.
Two statutes sit behind it. Regulation 43(1) of the Habitats Regulations 2017 includes two offences that matter on a roof: deliberately disturbing bats, and damaging a breeding site or resting place. Only the first needs deliberate intent, so the second bites even when the damage was an accident. Section 9(4) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 adds a further offence: to disturb a roosting bat intentionally or recklessly, or to block its access to a roost.
In plain terms, the safe assumption is that a roost counts whether or not a bat is home today. Lifting a ridge tile or closing a gap can be enough to cause harm.
You do not need to learn the statutes. You need to know that owner, roofer and scaffolder can all be exposed if work carries on after a find, which is why stopping and asking comes first. Advice costs far less than a mistake.
Licences are not automatic
It is wrong to say every bat find means a licence. The need for one turns on what the planned work would do to the roost, and on the view of an ecologist who has examined the building. Sometimes the method can be changed so the roost is left untouched.
Other outcomes are possible. A survey may find that the signs come from one occasional visitor, or from a roost outside the area being repaired. It may find a more significant roost that calls for a licence application and a fixed method. Each is a different job, and cost and programme follow the answer.
Treat with caution any claim that a licence is always required, or never required, made before a specialist has looked. Both are guesses, and a guess is no defence.
What you can do is ask the roofer to stop, agree in writing who will arrange the ecologist, and ask for a timetable once it is known. If the roof is already leaking, say so, because that changes how soon temporary protection has to be considered.
We would rather lose a day to a proper assessment than finish a roof that has to be reopened.
Why lofts and soffits matter to bats
Bats use quiet, dark, dry corners. A loft, a gap beside a ridge, the space behind a fascia board, a soffit box or a hole at a verge can all offer shelter. Many of those places are exactly where a roofer works, since ridge, hip, eaves and verge details are what get replaced on an ordinary re-roof.
So the roofline deserves a look before work starts. When we survey, we check the loft and the eaves and record droppings, staining or gaps that look used. If something turns up then, the discussion happens before a scaffold is booked, which beats finding out halfway through a strip.
A new roof can be planned to leave a bat access in place, but that belongs to the ecologist and is not something to add on your own. Any change to a gap or membrane near a roost should be agreed first.
If your loft is a room you seldom visit, look in with a torch before the roofer arrives and say what you see. Our answer on roof work and nesting birds covers the other wildlife question that comes up, and the main roofing page explains how a survey works.
