8mo ago

Cost of ‘bat shed’ to protect colony near HS2 has topped £100m, chair says

www.theguardian.com

Jon Thompson tells industry conference there was ‘no evidence’ that bats were at risk from the trains

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He said the “bat shed” was his favourite example of the problems caused. The Bechstein’s bat was “generally pretty available in most of northern Europe, western Europe”, he said. “But nevertheless, under the Wildlife Act, 1981, it’s deemed to be a protected species in the UK, this bat, even though there’s lots of them.”
The bat is rare in the UK and deemed to be “vulnerable” in Europe, according to the IUCN conservation network’s red list.
He sounds like a bit of a prick trying to muddy the waters in an investigation into why the project went so over-budget under his watch.
- I'm sure he could do a great job of muddying the waters with the propeller of his new fucking yacht
- "Available" like the bats are a cheap product. "Why shouldn't we decimate local animal populations, we can just order more off Amazon."
  Consumer brain is insidious and a symptom of a diseased worldview making us all alienated and miserable. Obviously not even in the top 50 things that are doing that at the moment, but it's up there.
"There were some rare bats we were legally obliged to protect, but we just had to drive the tracks right through the woods. We couldn't come up with any viable solutions except an ugly shed, then when the council complained about how ugly it was, we went over their heads to central government and lawyered them into submission. Wow that was expensive, huh."
You've heard of "Bike Shedding" (wasting time arguing about a pointless tangent)
Now get ready for "Bat Shedding" (wasting money arguing about a pointless tangent)
Nicola Murray was ahead of her time, the quiet bat people vote is locked in.
The trains are not even going to Euston.
- The latest budget included the funding to Euston.
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm271zepeydo

8 comments