A PROPOSAL to allocate land for nearly 300 homes on the outskirts of Monmouth could put at risk one of Wales’ most important bat roosts.

The inclusion of the 11-hectare farmland site at Leasbrook in a proposed Local Development Plan is opposed by environmental regulator Natural Resources Wales (NRW) due to uncertainties on the impact on a protected bat roost.

The land near the A40 Dixton roundabout and River Wye has been earmarked as suitable up to 270 houses in Monmouthshire Council’s replacement LDP that identifies potential new county housing sites.

Public hearings examining the council’s proposed planning blueprint through to 2033 have been continuing with independent inspectors hearing from objectors in online meetings.

On Tuesday, October 6, concerns over were presented with some objectors gathered at Monmouth Baptist Church to listen to and address the hearing.

Sam Dyer, NRW’s national specialist for bats, said the fields are crucial to the protected area and the nearby stable block and its juvenile population, which he said is already impacted by other factors that appear to have stalled its growth.

Young bats rely heavily on dung beetles produced by cattle-grazed land, said Mr Dyer, and the loss of such land at Leabrook would be significant.

He also said while the population at Newtown Court had grown it was at a lower rate than other areas.

“Compared to regions such as Pembrokeshire the rise is quite small – the numbers there are now up to three times found at Newton Court. Obviously it is coping with something sub-optimal already.”

Monmouth-based campaigner Jonty Pearce said the Dixton Bat Project and Gwent Wildlife Trust and three bat experts have opposed the inclusion of the site in the plan.

He said Newton Court is one of only five known maternity roosts in Wales and the only one in Monmouthshire, and a Freedom of Information request he’d made had shown the population last year was 330, suggesting there has already been a decline.

Mr Pearce said Newton Court is “one of the most important populations of Greater horseshoe bats in Britain” and said while the species was once widespread across Britain and northern Europe, it is now considered extinct or extremely rare in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Germany.

The council said it accepted “some scientific uncertainty around” the contribution made by the Leasbrook site to the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Bat Sites Special Area of Conservation (SAC), but said that doesn’t indicate an adverse effect, as it considered only a small area of the bats’ foraging zone would be lost.

Council officials, and a representative for the landowner, told the hearing it didn’t accept the NRW had identified a “reasonable scientific doubt”.

Monmouthshire Council ecologist Kate Stinchcombe said case law confirms the council is entitled, with reasons, to overrule NRW’s objections.

She claimed there was a lack of evidence the site is “critical” to supporting the nearby Newton Court stable block, that has the highest form of protection as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its maternity bat roots of the endangered Greater and Lesser horseshoe bats.

She said NRW hasn’t had a “clear plan” for the site and said: “There is an 18-year-old core management plan based on maintaining a site of 80 bats. We now have a population of 317 Greater horseshoe bats.”

Council director Craig O’Connor said there is no mechanism for the council to ensure a site remains in use as grazing land, but inclusion as a development site would allow it to require mitigations are in place and balance protections with the need for affordable housing.

Inspector Ms MacFarlane said the “matter of uncertainty” is something she would have to determine as part of her examination of the plan, on behalf of Welsh Government body Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW).

Ms MacFarlane and fellow inspector Julie de-Courcey are also examining proposed sites at Mounton Road, Chepstow, as well as former Ministry of Defence land at Caerwent.

They are also considering allocation for employment use at Newhouse Farm Industrial Estate and use of land near Piercefield Public House, St Arvans, alongside proposed allocation for sites for up to 700 homes east of Caldicot and north of Portskewett.