Glad you added the last bit; these bridges aren't 'silly environment ideas' so much as they are cheap green-washing BS by councils and developers because actual solutions would be harder.

The real geniuses are the guys that got away with charging £350k...for a few poles and nets.... bravo... 👏🏼

Laughed out loud at "Dave and his fully laden truck". It's me! I'm Dave and I frequently drive a fully laden truck down that stretch of the A11! Sorry bats!

Ok, so, who is the genius who persuaded councils to buy their bat bridges, and why can’t we contact them on their new yacht?

I'd bet my savings local charities, sports clubs, parish councils and events got told 'We've got no money to spend on stupid projects' during the same period.

It's not like councils keep going bankrupt or anything, just keep wasting money on placebos....

What a batshit crazy idea

"of coarse they f*ckng don't" Made me my tea come out my nose.

Bats are everywhere, therefore every road should have bat bridges, said a spokesman for the bat bridge construcion company.

2:10 - "If you were a bat, this is sub-optimal" 😂😂😂

On the plus side, they do deter elephants. Not a single incidence of elephant incursion on to the carriageway has ever been reported in the vicinity of any of these structures.

" Right ! to the bat cave " . "Can't I'm afraid there's no bridge" . Said no one.

Its corruption. Everyone knows two sticks and a net across a road won't do anything but they get to line their pockets with £350,000 for barely any work.

I've passed these a few times and always thought they were for forestry services to access both sides of the road. A bridge for bats sounds as dumb as trying to build a water fountain for fish. Hilarious that Norfolk council saw Suffolk council piss 350k up the wall on 6 bat brides and thought "we can top that" and blew a million on 7. Is the 7th one made of gold or what? Smells of entirely of embezzlement to me. Local councils being corrupt and incompetent? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

The underpass sounds like a good idea. As well as bats, it could be used by various animals.

At this point one wonders if all UK councils aren't secretly run by Riddler, Joker and Penguin...

Its funny because there's been one of these "bat bridges" on the A497 since 2006 and they discovered that it didn't work pretty much immediately after the road was reopened. Almost 20 years later and councils are still wasting obscene amounts of our money on these things.

If the bats are still there, why not tree line the centre of the carriageway?, surely one side of the dual carriageway width is equivalent to the old single carriageway road

I understand all the potholes now - Councils provide them for newts and frogs to cross the roads safely!!

I'm a property developer. Back in the day, I applied for planning permission to redevelop an old estate pub into 12 houses. I had to spend £13,500 on bat and badger reports. The reports all came back saying that there were no bats in the vicinity. After 2 years, I got planning permission, subject to 23 conditions, of which 8 related to the protection of bats and badgers that I had spent £13,500 on reports to prove that they did not exist. I bladdy love planners.

it truly is a scandal how much money is wasted by councils

£60,000 for each set 😲😳, I work for the electric board and install over line poles and wires just like this everyday of the week, We could have built all 6 bridges for less than it cost them to do just the one.

2:13 just as a side note, bats are not blind. They have eyes, and these eyes are functional (albeit not nearly as advanced as human eyes). Their sonar sense is an additional tool they have to observe the world, it doesn't replace their sight.

It has to be acknowledged that the Bat Bridges in Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook are all working just fine.

Even the councils know the bats wouldn't cross over them. If the councils thought for one minute that anything would cross there (bats or otherwise), they would have installed tolls on the bridge.

Fun fact , bats aren't blind and can actually see quite well at nite , not so good in daylight tho

These bats clearly need wings that are like Shields of Steel!

I live in West Suffolk, yes we have Bat Bridges, we also have ponds in the roads commonly known as “potholes”

This reminds me of Squirrel bridge build over a road in by the municipality in The Hague for like €144.000,- in 2012. By 2014 only 3 or so squirrels had been confirmed to have actually used it. Although at least unlike the bat bridges it did eventually start getting used by squirrles, but for almost a decade it was a running joke about wasteful spending. Edit: oh that ending theme, well done.

We have some in Cornwall at Dobwalls they cost nearly one million and the study to prove they worked cost half a million and showed that they didn’t work

How does a bat press the button specifically for liking this video ?

At least local tax payers can take solace in the fact they don't work in France, the Netherlands and Poland, either. After all, why bother learning from someone else's mistake if you can also burn a couple 100k in public funds?

Easy solution to fix them: Ivy Grow Ivy across those bridges -> you get a plant which is one of the best carbon filtering plant, a cover over the road and maybe even bats not dropping down...

I mean... I'm kinda surprised that it's only 350,0... what?! one million?! That's just crazy

At the Goodwood motor racing circuit there’s an underpass going under the main straight. Bats used them to travel, and sometimes to sleep. You frequently saw them as you walked through. Worried about the noise and maybe people disturbing sleeping bats as they walk past, they installed privacy boxes to dull the noise and partially shield them from the public. Have never seen a bat in there ever since.

They should clearly have spent the £350,000 on evening schools for politicians

If you ever looked at a bat it should be obvious that they are not blind because they look back at you with their eyes which they use to see things. it is true that they use sonar a lot even on a full moon and when it's not a full moon they can't see much, but that's just because it is really dark. I'm curious as to why the underpasses work better than bat bridges. For that matter, if the theory is that the bat bridge can be sensed by sonar, wouldn't a pedestrian bridge also be sensed by sonar? Might as well turn that £350,000 project that doesn't work into a £1,050,000 one that people can walk accross.

Well some specialist told them that was the way forward, but whatever, £350,000 to keep the environmentalist off your back would be considered reasonable.

Let's be real here, the entire reason these were constructed was so someone in the council could funnel money to their buddies. That being said, why did they cut down so many trees if they were worried this would happen, they cut down more than was needed to build the road.

Don't dis my fully-laden truck!

What a total waste of time and money, councillors are batty!

This is batshit crazy!

Just one point of fact. Bats are not blind their vision is relatively good. So good infact that they see these structures as a waste of resources and money.

To anyone who is not of the left, it is obvious that a singular tread connects much of their activities. The intention (usually with other people’s money) is alway more important than the result. Stated differently, the thought that you’ve done good is more rewarding than actually doing good.

The government absolutely love bats, makes me think they might be all vampires

Been along there many times and wondered WTF these are - and now I know.

I drive under these every day and just could not figure them out - the reveal is like a bad movie plot twist - utterly random and impossible to guess.

No bats were harmed in the making of this video.

Go to Talgarth in mid Wales and you will find a doormouse bridge on the bypass. I kid you not!

I've always wondered what they were. Thanks!

One really needs a special kind of people to come up with something like this. People that drive on the wrong side of the road for example.

This right here is why I don't understand people who put their faith in government officials to solve ANY problems. Here in the U.S., a few years ago, there was a story about a city government that spent something like $2.5 million building a bathroom at a park.

Studies have shown that Canada wildlife crossing are pretty effective, as they blend more into the environment than this type does, they are also more expensive than this type.

It's not about the 350k being expensive, it's about 350k being a super cheap way to deliberately avoid their legal ecological responsibilities.

There was a similar farce when Catthorpe interchange was rebuilt, newt traps had to be installed which cost several thousand £ per newt saved.

Bats aren't blind. They see perfectly well and echolocation is just a fine-tuned hunting and communication tool.

Theres one up on the A590 in the lake district

look look, the king is naked!

I approve of this video highlighting the BS around the Councils treatment of my buddies.... 🦇😎🦇 🤣🤣🤣 🇬🇧 Oh, and GREAT theme choice too! 👍

I saw a few of these around Norwich last year, thought there were unfinished pylons at first but then noticed the netting and realised they were something else but couldn't figure out what..... I NEVER would have guessed this because its just too stupid and wasteful of taxpayers cash. But hey, welcome to the UK in 2024, where ideology and virtue signally trumps common sense and logic every time. 😒

"A single dual-carriageway road" at 1:00? I think the "dual" is more redundant than these bridges!

Absolutely superb!

Ive often been using that stretch of a11 and wondered what wildlife was meant to use the wire bridges. Thanks for clearing up that none do

I drive past these quite often and wondered what these actually were! Another excellent video Jon!

I like the ending :D but now I want to watch Batman Returns

Always wondered how those things work, fantastic (if they worked)

I drove under the ones in Norfolk 2 days ago and couldn't work out what they were for, so thanks Jon for explaining their function. A bridge for a bat didn't even cross my mind.

The first mistake they made was assuming that the carriageways needed to be in close proximity to each other, the second was that a giant clearing was required on either side of them... it is possible to traverse through nature without absolutely destroying it.

The reason bat bridges were copied even though they didn't work is the same logic that has resulted in the rise of the giant SUV

I think you may be missing the deeper idea here: If you take no measure, extremist luddites will go to court, get some leftwing judge to shoot down the necessary road expansion and you're stuck with a narrow dangerous road and unimportant stuff like oh I dunno, people dying during miscalculated overtakes. If you do this, you beat their sabotage case because look at these shiny new bat-bridges. You build the necessary road, everybody's happy and the ecology will adjust to the new situation no problems. And at just 350K that's a bargain as far as pricetags for defeating 'environmentalist' luddites go: They've been known to burn through billions. In one of my projects we're spending € 1200000 taxpayer money on a wooden bridge for 1 hypothetical badger that may or may not exist in the area. But it was that or they'd get an activist judge to crush our entire permit. The expansion of the Rotterdam port took a literal cartload full of paperwork to beat the luddites (I don't exagerate here, merely the first chapter is 5000+ pages), the commissioning of which cost well over € 7 million.

Bat's are not blind. They can see in daylight but at night it's too dark so that's why they have echo location.

When I was driving to Watton from London at the time to see my parents and did the M11/A11 every Wednesday night I watched that road being built over the months. The old road was crap as it single laned and the traffic lights at Elveden junction caused massive jams with holiday makers. When they built the new road they cut down huge swathes of trees so it was going to be a no brainer that wildlife was going to suffer. Not only the bats but the A11 was always covered in road kill! Me and my dad counted 6 badgers, 8 hares/rabbits, 1 sheep, 3 muntjacks (look like big rabbits on acid, at the time unique to The Brecks) between the Thetford turn and Barton Mills. If you wanted to see bats you would go up to the Elveden War Memorial where at dusk you can still see bats whizzing around blissfully unaware of all the hundreds of caravans annoying the locals. It's also a good dogging spot! I suspect the bats and other things including humans are more likely to be picked off at the nearby Thetford Range army training ground. I suspect that what has happened is, the bats have decided not to bother crossing the road and just stay in there local bits or just pop down to Barton Mills for a quick snack. Now there is a new episode of AS... The old A11......

I drive to Norwich quite regularly and always wondered why they didn't burry those electrical cables instead of those pylons. Never occurred to me that they were bat guides. Good work there, Jon.

They should have just given the bats bigger ears.

Very interesting! I've driven down that road a number of times and previously thought they were for squirrels or something like that. That was until I realised the ramp up the side isn't actually connected to the bridge part at the top, which left me totally baffled. Thanks for explaining.

God Love Ya 😊 They got the Bats Cable. When they should know Bats nowadays are WIRELESS 😂

Always wondered what these useless things were for. 😂

Council tax money not well spent, what they could have done was spend it in pothole repairs......😂😂😂

Chance would have it we drove past/under these a couple of weeks ago and thought WTF are those they look like they do nothing. Jon, thanks for explaining that they do exactly that and the reasons behind them 🙂

Those look like power lines. I don't think most people with a survival instinct would even consider walking on power lines. That bridge is worse than useless.

Have you had a good week?

I like this video so I’ve pressed the button specifically for that 👉🏻

I’m sure it will delight you to hear that these things exist all over the country. Cornwall council have several on the a38 and a30

Coke and hookers quote, had me in stitches

Waste, incompetence and stupidity The three things councils actually are good at.

na na na nah nah nah nahhhh B.....

Thank you for using the Batman theme from the late 80s/early 90s. It was by far the best version.

When these huge cost projects deliver apparently appaling value for money, it is, in this case, the literal batsignal for corruption.. We're really suffering from this in Wales at the moment. Those present within government are stealing our money. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - George Orwell, 1984.

LOL

To be that guy: bats arent blind, they can see just as well in light as any other creature. The point of their sonar is to help them see in the dark

Brilliant episode - I’ve always been worried that I subscribe to a channel about roads - but an episode like this means I could almost explain it to my partner…

And another £500,000,000,00 Tory Batshit crazy idea was flights to Rwanda (and not one ever left ) talk about waste makes you Bat Bridges look real cheap by comparison 🤔🤔

Drove under these today & thought to my self “I wonder what these are” Now I have my answer, thanks Jon

Where I live in Arizona the highway department was going to widen 5 miles of road. The enviros filed a court action to stop it because it would endanger mountain lions and coyotes. They wanted an overpass, 4 traffic lanes wide as a critter crossing and miles of fencing to channel the animals toward it. They got it. The new road is great and the bridge is a thing of wonder. It looks like any highway bridge but without pavement. The department of wildlife set up cameras so they could count the critters crossing. They haven’t seen many.

The thing that always gets me isn't the daft ideas and waste of public money, its the fact that someone in government agreed that £58k was a reasonable price for them, then some other pleb thought £140k was equally acceptable!!!

Bullshit. That's corruption. There's no way that setting two poles on either side of a highway and stringing some wire between them costs more than 12,000 pounds. This project was overpriced by an order of magnitude.

This is genius. Someone out there figured just how much money they could make on these councils, by selling them sticks and nets.

Contrary to the popular saying, bats aren't actually blind, and have quite reasonable eyesight, but they do fly in the dark, so there's not much to see.

£58k for some logs fixed in the ground and metal between them that crazy

As Katie Hopkins says - batshit bonkers Britain! ========================================