Demolition works at former traveler encampment halted by presence of bats.
It was a bitter dispute that played out over several months in the British courts. In the red corner, a group of travelers who had built upon land set aside for them by the local council without seeking planning consent. In the blue corner, the local authority keen to reclaim the land and to prevent planning regulations from being abused.
Ultimately, the travelers lost, although not before the council had run up legal bills (at the taxpayers’ expense) of close on £20 million. With the travelers evicted, the excavators moved in to level the structures erected without planning consent.
Until someone spotted some bat droppings, the presence of which brought the demolition works to a shuddering halt.
Of course, this revelation does come from the UK “newspaper” The Daily Mail and is, therefore, only loosely based upon the truth. But the fact that people can be evicted while a few flying mice cannot does carry with it a certain strange irony.
