This is a great story about what can happen when you put an active local group together with cooperative architects and developers resulting in a most satisfactory outcome
by
Robin Pote
For and on behalf of Ludlow Swift Group
Victory House in Ludlow, until recently home to the British Legion, is a large, rather neglected 4 storey building which has always had good numbers of swifts nesting in the roof away from the road. Up to 9 nests have been occupied in recent years. The sale of the building into private hands and rumours of extensive building work was of great concern to Ludlow Swift Group (LSG). Once plans became clear, a meeting was arranged with the ecological assessor and he was shown all the nest sites and left clear in his mind of the importance of the building for Swifts.
The subsequent report was extremely swift-friendly and was adopted with enthusiasm by the architects. As soon as work began to remove and re-lay all the roof tiles Ludlow Swift Group members were able to visit the site and offer advice. We were planning on suggesting box types, possibly swift bricks as replacements for the natural wall plate sites. However we were amazed to see the current sites, full of debris and old nesting material. So much old nesting material in fact that there was barely space for birds to nest and might explain why young birds have fallen out in the past.
The wall plate was a substantial oak beam and quite deep, with free access from outside. The roofers offered to clean out all the wall plate spaces between the trusses and line each on three sides with ply to create secure spaces with no access into the roof behind and which would also prevent roof debris slipping in to nests as had happened before. Not all the ‘boxes’ are of equal size, and some may be too small. However, by the time they had finished the job the roofers had created upwards of 50 spaces suitable for swifts!! We await May 2017 with great excitement. This is potentially a ‘natural’ swift tower for Ludlow!
by
Robin Pote
For and on behalf of Ludlow Swift Group
Victory House in Ludlow, until recently home to the British Legion, is a large, rather neglected 4 storey building which has always had good numbers of swifts nesting in the roof away from the road. Up to 9 nests have been occupied in recent years. The sale of the building into private hands and rumours of extensive building work was of great concern to Ludlow Swift Group (LSG). Once plans became clear, a meeting was arranged with the ecological assessor and he was shown all the nest sites and left clear in his mind of the importance of the building for Swifts.
The subsequent report was extremely swift-friendly and was adopted with enthusiasm by the architects. As soon as work began to remove and re-lay all the roof tiles Ludlow Swift Group members were able to visit the site and offer advice. We were planning on suggesting box types, possibly swift bricks as replacements for the natural wall plate sites. However we were amazed to see the current sites, full of debris and old nesting material. So much old nesting material in fact that there was barely space for birds to nest and might explain why young birds have fallen out in the past.
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| Newly created nest sites |
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