THE failure to remove bats from an ancient church – forcing worshippers to cancel services – has been condemned as “ridiculous” by a Government minister.

Natural England came under fire for “gold-plating” a Brussels directive, preventing the removal of 250 of the protected Natterer’s bats from St Hilda’s Church, Ellerburn, near Pickering, North Yorkshire.

No services have been held at the Saxon church since July – leaving the pews covered in bat droppings.

Now the issue has been raised at Westminster, by Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, who told ministers: “Have we not reached a ridiculous state of affairs when bats have greater protection than the congregation?”

In reply, Environment Minister Richard Benyon said: “We want to abide by the habitats directive and, in most cases, working with Natural England, we can resolve these issues locally.

“But it would be ridiculous if churches that have been used for worship for hundreds of years become unusable owing to a too-close following of the directive.

“We must consider finding an alternative means to provide a place where bats can roost and people can worship.”

The 1992 Habitats Directive requires EU member states to protect about 1,000 species.

Mr Benyon said his department had already asked the Law Commission to investigate all wildlife legislation to ensure it was not being “gold-plated”.

But, speaking afterwards, Mrs McIntosh said this was a way of “kicking it into the long grass”, when more urgency was needed. “This has been rumbling on for years,” she said. “You can only imagine the damage from bat droppings after all this time – the urine has covered the inside of the church like whitewash.

“An alternative location has been found for the bats on a nearby farm and there is no reason why an agreement cannot be reached with Natural England.”

Mrs McIntosh said she was in no doubt the EU directive had been applied too stringently.

Natural England granted a licence to have the bats in 2008, but it was later revoked for technical reasons.

The organisation did not respond to telephone calls from The Northern Echo.