FEATURE: PET & BIRD CARE


BIRDS AND BEES FIND A HOME AT NEW WILDLIFE-FRIENDLY HOUSING DEVELOPMENT


An RSPB survey reveals that wildlife-friendly measures on a major new housing development have boosted numbers of key bird species, including Red Listed house sparrows which saw a rise in breeding pairs from two to 147. Bee numbers have also more than doubled.


T


he Kingsbrook development, near


Aylesbury,


was designed to be an exemplar of nature-friendly


housing in a collaboration between Barratt Developments plc, Buckinghamshire Council, and the RSPB. With the UK government committed to building 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, and with UK wildlife in decline, this report is a critical blueprint for how to build homes for wildlife and people.


Building housing developments with nature in mind can provide a vital refuge to struggling local wildlife, reveals the RSPB, following a wildlife survey of a major new development from Barratt Developments plc, the UK’s largest housebuilder. The survey report, reveals that numbers of some species have soared at Kingsbrook, in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Highlights include that estimated breeding pairs of house sparrows, which are on the Red List of conservation concern, rose from two to 147. Bumblebee numbers have also more than doubled.


Cost-effective wildlife-friendly choices


These findings are critical at a time when the UK government has committed to building 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, and with many previously familiar garden species in decline. House sparrows, for example, have halved in rural England since the 1970s,


and half of all bumblebee species are falling.


The RSPB, Barratt, and Aylesbury


Vale District Council (now Buckinghamshire Council) worked together to design a development that could be an exemplar for nature-friendly housebuilding - creating space for struggling local wildlife as well as people. The designs incorporate a range


wide of cost-effective


wildlife-friendly choices such as integrating swift nest bricks into the walls of houses, planting fruit trees in gardens, and constructing sustainable drainage system ponds and wetlands. The plans also


16 DIY WEEK OCTOBER 2022


protect existing wildlife habitats and create new ones, including new orchards, planting native trees and hedgerows, and sowing areas of wildflower meadow.


RSPB report conclusions The RSPB conducted a survey back in 2015, the year before construction began, and then again in 2021, after the first village of 600 houses was built. They found that despite the construction there was no loss in number of bird species (holding steady at 65), and that the breeding species went up by one


(42


compared to 41). There were also huge increases in the number of


individual birds for many species, including the house sparrow (up 3,941%) and starling (up 96%), both on which are the Red List of conservation concern. Some species which might have been expected to decrease also rose, including the Amber Listed reed bunting (up 65%) and whitethroat (up 72%). A few bird species declined in


number, including the chaffinch (down 84%), which is experiencing declines


nationally, and linnet


(down 83%), potentially due to the immaturity of new habitats. Overall butterfly numbers held relatively stable (going from 1,425 to 1,370), with the total number of species


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