Bats reject £350k bridges installed to help them cross A11

Six bridges installed for bats to cross the A11 between Suffolk and Norfolk have been criticised as a "waste of money" after the animals ignored the £350,000 wire gantries.

A study found that the bat bridges have been ineffective and "don't fulfil all of the ecological requirements of the bat".

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According to ITV News, the bridges were built to guide the bats safely above traffic but Professor John Altringham, from the University of Leeds, says: "The bat wants a hedgerow or a tree line to fly along and that provides them with shelter from the wind, protection from predators and provides them with food and it's a very big and obvious structure for them to pick up.

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"A wire bridge doesn't present any of those things to the bat so there is no good reason why the bat would pay any attention to it and that's what we find they don't."

Highways England defended the bridges and told the Daily Mail: "The measures on the A11 were modified from previous designs... and were part of a larger package, including a landscaping programme and artificial bat roosts, intended to support local bat populations."

Earlier this year, a cash-strapped council was condemned for spending £16,000 on a luxury home for bats in an area with a chronic housing shortage.

Highland Council spent £12,000 of taxpayers' cash on the two-storey wooden bat house which boasts a tiled roof and dormer windows.

The authority paid a 'bat consultant' a further £4,040 to advise on the project, located south of Inverness.

The spending was branded "outrageous" by locals - some of whom have to live in caravans for months while they wait for affordable housing to become available.

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