Your Family and Other Animals
By JOANNE SMITH
HOW to catch and rehouse more than 2,500 slow-worms was the problem facing property developer St James Homes when it set out to transform a former sewage works at Worcester Park, south-west London, into an estate of smart New Englandstyle homes. To gain planning permission, St James had to agree to rehouse the slow- worms beside a nearby reservoir.
Slow-worms are an endangered species in Britain and are protected by law. (If you want to know for the next pub quiz: you can tell a slow-worm from a snake because, unlike snakes, slow-worms have eyelids they are harmless lizards that have lost their legs).
Protecting them, and other wildlife, is an issue that regularly faces developers as pressure grows to safeguard the environment.
About three-quarters of all new homes are built on abandoned brownfield sites but many of these have become havens for insects such as stag beetles and bumblebees.
Ecologist Valerie Selby, of Wandsworth council, explains: "Brownfield sites often contain a greater biodiversity than highly managed green-belt land.
"We look at what is going to be affected by development, and, if an animal or plant is going to lose its home, the Holt Studios developers have to mitigate for it, perhaps by providing similar habitat on the site when the building work is done." Very often this improves the local environment, which in turn encourages more wildlife. Says Selby: "Working with our ecologists, developers can create wildlife-friendly schemes at very little extra cost." Battersea Reach, a huge new housing scheme on the banks of the Thames, is being built on the site of former Gargoyle Wharf, which, since falling into disuse, had become home to more than 300 species of plants and animals, including a group of insects known as Thames Terrace Invertebrates. These insects, found only on wasteland sites along the river, include the gloriously named five-banded tailed digger wasp and the brown-banded carder bumblebee. They thrive on the acid grasslands and nectar-rich wild flowers that the relatively warm, dry climate along the Thames encourages.
The insects in turn provide food for sparrows and blue tits, familiar in our gardens, as well as endangered species, such as linnets and black redstarts, that prefer to live on wasteland.
Wandsworth council worked with Battersea Reach developer St George to create wildlife-friendly habitats, such as intertidal terraces lines of wire baskets filled with gravel, mud and sand. The terraces are planted sparingly with reeds and sedges to allow room for native species to join them.
Selby says: "The theory is that, so long as you create the right habitat, animals and plants will come back. Wastelands act as a reservoir, and the Thames is a fantastic wildlife corridor." One-, two- and three-bedroom flats at Ensign House, part of Battersea Reach, are available from Pounds 359,950, with completions scheduled for early next year. Call 020 7978 4141, or visit www.batterseareach.com.
Just as nature intended In a practice now common in the United States, and gaining popularity here, developers can compensate for the environmental impact of new building by helping to fund the creation of eco habitats nearby.
This can often mean a more cohesive approach to conserving wildlife, says John Newton, managing director of Ecology Consultancy, a firm of eco experts who advise developers. "If you preserve wildlife on a strategic basis, rather than on a site-by- site basis, you can achieve much more," he adds.
But it is not just new building that can cause problems for plants and animals destroying old buildings can be damaging, too. Swifts, for example, spend most of their lives in the air but nest in the eaves found on traditional buildings. For very little cost, swift boxes can be incorporated into new developments to give them somewhere to breed.
Design for Biodiversity, an advisory group set up by the London Development Agency, GLA, Natural England, Groundwork London and London Wildlife Trust, provides guidance to developers, architects and landscape designers in the capital to help them build wildlife- friendly homes.
Emily Brennan, of London Wildlife Trust, says: "Incorporating the needs of wildlife at the outset is much more effective than simply adding a few features as an afterthought. Biodiversity can be incorporated into developments through landscaping, good drainage and features such as nesting bricks and boxes. Growing concern about climate change is giving us more opportunities to encourage developers and government to adopt building practices that benefit wildlife." Contacts These are all great sites for discovering more about London’s wildlife: www.londons-swifts.org.uk; www.d4b.org.uk; and www.wildlondon.org.uk ‘Swifts spend most of their lives in the air but nest in the eaves of traditional buildings’
(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.