TWO Game of Thrones stars have suffered a new blow in a year-long battle over a building at their £1.75million Tudor home.
Married co-stars Kit Harington and Rose Leslie, both 37, are trying to convert a 15th-century barn at their home in Suffolk into a guest house with a games room.
The pair want to restore the barn to provide guest accommodation, a games room, and also install new gates and other landscaping features at the historic property.
But Harington and Leslie, who met playing Jon Snow and Ygritte in HBO fantasy hit Game of Thrones, have had their plans stumped by bats.
Babergh district council has yet to approve the plans for the 8.2-acre estate, which were submitted in November 2023, because of insufficient information provided by the couple about the bats roosting in the barn.
Ecological experts Place Services, drafted in from Essex County Council, objected as a bat survey revealed there were 39 common pipistrelle bat sightings on three separate occasions in 2022, with bats falling under protected species laws.
The report had also noted one satellite roost, four day roosts, four hibernation roosts and one feeding roosts of various bats.
The creatures are protected under regulation 43 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, which makes it an offence to deliberately capture, kill or disturb certain wild animals.
Thirty-nine pipistrelle bats were at the barn on three occasions in 2022, according to a bat survey report submitted to the council.
It said: “In absence of mitigation measures, the proposed refurbishment and conversion of the barn will result in the loss and damage to a number of bat roosts and bats may be harmed during the works.”
Place Services, a public sector environmental consultancy that works with councils, have also objected to the couple’s plans.
It said: “We are still not satisfied that sufficient ecological information is currently available for determination of this application.”
The complaint, dated Nov 12, demands there should be “at least one bat emergence survey during the period May to September and an automated bat detector survey to monitor its use by bats for at least 10 days”.
More details also haven’t been forthcoming on their strategy to mitigate and compensate for the bat roosts removal to another area with Place Services recommending that another open barn to the east “may be used to provide suitable alternative roosting opportunities”.
In 2021, Harington and Leslie – who have two children together – won a battle to build a new moat wall at their home despite Historic England saying it could lead to the loss of ancient remains and artefacts.
They met in 2012 on the set of the hit HBO series, in which they played on-screen couple Jon Snow and Ygritte.
It comes after the celebrity couple lodged plans to build new gates at their country residence to stop people peering in.
They said their privacy and security had been ‘continuously breached’ since they moved into the farmhouse in 2017.
Essex County Council and Place Services have been contacted for comment by The Sun.
