THEY may have dropped in uninvited but a bat colony have been declared welcome additions to a busy college campus.
Which is perhaps just as well because Salford College’s Worsley campus couldn’t get rid of the creatures, even if they wanted to, as they are protected by law.
Sam Sharples, the campus health, safety and estates coordinator, said: "We know we can’t touch them but we wouldn’t want to because they are quite delightful.
"There isn’t a problem with bat droppings and if there was, we would clear it up without disturbing them.
"Also, although there are fears that some bats can carry rabies, we have been told that these Soprano Pipistrelle bats do not.
"I understand that there are about 100 of them and that figure is not likely to increase before they go into their winter hibernation in October.
"We will just have to wait and see what happens next year, but we are more than happy to have them here.
"The only difficulty is when the younger ones kept on setting off the fire alarms after getting through the roof in one of the teaching blocks at night."
Once the young bats were discovered lying exhausted on the floor, experts from the South Lancashire Bat Group were called in to advise staff on how to nurse the creatures back to health.
A bat casualty ward was set up and staff were instructed on how to feed the bats with water to rehydrate them, before they were put back into the roof space.
Sam said: "We couldn’t work out how they were getting into the classrooms but the bat volunteers said the likely access point is the light fittings.
"They think it is only the younger ones getting in, because the older ones are more sensible and get in and out by the roof on the outside."
Councillor Keith Mann, lead member for the environment at Salford City Council, said: "Bats are a protected species and we must do everything we can to look after them.
"We’ve spoken to experts and there are no health and safety risks with the roost and it’s against the law to disturb the live nest.
"When the bats go off to find a warmer home in the winter we will be able to get a proper look to see if it needs cleaning up.
"It’s hard to say if the bats will come back and how long they will be there for but it’s nice to have such a rare and wonderful creature so close by."
