Building new homes for swifts and communities
Installing a swift nest brick in new housing developments across Britain.
RSPB, Barratt Developments and Manthorpe Building Products came together to give nature a home in new housing developments across Britain by designing and installing a new swift nest brick – the first such swift brick designed with input from nature experts.
The work is part of its corporate partnership with the RSPB to help give nature a home by supporting wildlife on new housing developments. Building new homes for swifts is an important goal of this partnership with the UK’s population of swifts having fallen to fewer than 90,000 pairs, down from 150,000 pairs two decades ago.
The bricks are an industry first as they are fully drained, ventilated and are unobtrusive by matching the colour of the bricks. They are also much cheaper than others on the market, so as to boost their uptake with other developers and housebuilders. The bricks even won a prestigious NextGeneration innovation award for helping to boost the number of swifts in the country.
Around eight hundred of the specially designed nest boxes have been installed at various David Wilson Homes and Barratt sites across the country. In Aylesbury alone Barratt is aiming to install up to 900 of the boxes at its flagship nature development, Kingsbrook.
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