You wouldn’t believe what the builder of 2012 has to do to ensure the safe survival of the birds and the bees on site. Janet Burnell of Kent-based Pentland Homes is actually quite pleased about the whole thing.

With the arrival of spring, nature and the outdoors can be fully appreciated and watching birds feeding from the bird table can be one of life’s pleasures.

As a nation, I think that it is our duty to care for the biodiversity and ecosystem of our local area and to protect those everyday nature sightings.

As a house builder, protecting the environment whilst trying to create new homes is a crucial issue and what the public might not know is that we consider protected species and protected habitats at the earliest stages of development, even before a planning application has been submitted.

The developer or land owner needs to establish, by surveying the land, whether there are any protected species present on site, close to the site, or likely to be affected by development, for example, loss of foraging habitat.

This survey period may take a whole year to account for hibernation and breeding seasons, a time period which needs to be built into our programme.

We carry out site surveys for species like great crested newts, bats, owls and dormice, because under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, all wild birds, many plants and animals, insects, fish and amphibians are protected. If any of these are found on the land, there are regulations to adhere to – for example, it is only in certain seasons that they are allowed to be moved to other habitats.

We regularly provide bird and bat nesting boxes and create winter nests for reptiles like the common lizard.

Our site in Elham has a buzzard box at the top of a 30m Wellingtonia tree and in Hawkinge, we have converted wartime pill boxes into bat roosts. We have also provided special bird boxes for wrens and tree creepers.

We provide water butts for conserving rain water and garden sheds to house bicycles to promote exercise and the reduction of car journeys and will continue to look at ways that we can do our bit to preserve and protect our environment.

For further information on Pentland Homes, please contact the sales office on Tel: 01303 893080 or visit www.pentlandhomes.co.uk