I am convinced that the RSPB is at its best when, through practical projects, it demonstrates how to reconcile the needs of people and wildlife and inspires others to follow our lead.
With partners, we’ve shown how to farm profitably while recovering farmland bird populations, how to catch fish rather than albatrosses and how to protect homes from flooding while creating new habitat for wildlife.
We recently turned our attention to housing.
The Westminster Government is expected to launch its Housing White Paper for England very soon. This will announce a number of changes as part of the wider drive to increase housing supply towards its stated ambition of a million new homes over the next five years.
Clearly, there is a significant need for new housing in the UK. However, the quality and location of this housing is just as important as the quantity: new housing developments should be delivered in harmony with nature and planned to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, whilst providing resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Through our work with the house builder, Barratt Developments, we want the Kingsbrook project near Aylesbury to set a benchmark for nature friendly housing developments.
Construction started in summer 2016. It is anticipated that the 2,450 home development will include a major new urban fringe nature reserve as well as nature-friendly elements in the built environment such as sustainable urban drainage system (such as swales and detention ponds), hedgehog highways in fences, flower-rich grasslands in public open spaces, native tree planting including the rare black poplar, fruit trees in gardens, and recently launched swift bricks.
These new bricks (below) are particularly impressive. Developed by Barratt, the RSPB, Action for Swifts and Manthorpe Building Products Ltd, the brick acts as a nest box while easily incorporated into the construction process. We hope that providing replacement nest sites in new buildings will help to reverse the decline in the swift population.
While we hope these measures will deliver environmental improvements, we are also keen to improve people’s lives. To investigate this, we have established a research project to assess the health and wellbeing benefits of access to nature and greenspace in the Kingsbrook development. We hope to demonstrate that it is good for us all to have contact with nature close to where we live.
In addition to the Kingsbrook project, our work with Barratt should lead a net positive impact for wildlife across all Barratt operations. This should be the ambition for all development. We need to build great places for people and nature to live.
So we urge the Government, through its White Paper, to...
...ensure all new homes are designed to the standard we are setting at Kingsbrook.
...maintain and enhance our network of protected areas of biodiversity (international, national and local) and other land of high environmental value as articulated in the National Planning Policy Framework.
...maintain protection for brownfield land of high environmental value.
...deliver new housing developments in harmony with nature and aim to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, whilst providing resilience to the impacts of climate change. A good place to start will be to show leadership and demonstrate what can be achieved in recently proposed Garden Towns and Villages.
With Barratt, we think we can set the benchmark for nature-friendly housing developments in the UK.
And we hope and expect the Government will share this ambition: to build new homes while fulfilling its commitment to restore biodiversity in a generation.
Schemes such as the one you write about in Aylesbury show that, in some cases, for example when a development is on intensively managed agricultural land in the green belt, building homes can lead to improved conditions for wildlife - and better quality of life for people.