Despite pressure on government from the #FeatherSpeech campaign and others, to date there is no national legislation enforcing the mandatory inclusion of Swift bricks in new developments. At the local level, planning authorities can include such measures through planning policies such as the Local Plan and Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) but this is typically a slow and cumbersome process with only a handful of planning authorities currently requiring the installation of Swift bricks in new developments, although many support them in principle. In Derbyshire we have 10 planning authorities of which only one currently mentions Swift bricks in planning policy (and that is as part of a climate change SPG) although this might change over the next 2 years as both Amber Valley and Derbyshire Dales have included such a requirement in their draft revisions to their Local Plans.
In the absence of legislation, how feasible is it to persuade overworked planning officers to insist on the inclusion of Swift bricks as part of the planning approval? We decided to find out….
When commenting on planning applications our aim is to persuade the planning officer to include a “condition” in the decision letter which states that approval is given on condition that Swift bricks are included in the development (ideally with plans indicating their locations and a description of the number and type recommended, and photographic evidence of suitable installation).
Since mid-2021, we have been reviewing all planning applications for 5 or more dwellings submitted to the 10 planning authorities in Derbyshire (including the Peak District National Park). We wanted to know if:
- the development work requested in the application was suitable for the integration of Swift bricks (also known as "universal nest bricks", due to their popularity with a wide range of cavity-nesting small bird species)?
- Swift bricks had been recommended by the Ecology Consultant (who produces an ecology report on behalf of the developer)?
- the Biodiversity Officer (who works on behalf of the planning authority) was consulted on this application and, if so, what were their comments with respect to Swift bricks and the recommendations of the Ecology report?
Depending on the above, we then submitted a comment on the application, addressing what we considered to be the most pertinent feature of the application when looking at it in terms of biodiversity enhancement for declining urban bird species. On occasion, when the situation merited it, a letter would also be sent to the Ecology Consultant to advise them of the importance of targeted biodiversity enhancement for rapidly declining urban bird species such as Swift.
We tracked the progress of each planning application monthly until final approval was given. In this way we could determine the success of this approach in terms of the number of Swift bricks conditioned.
We have summarised the results obtained so far.
215 planning applications submitted to 9 planning authorities (see map above) were reviewed in the period under review (0 applications were reviewed from the Peak District National Park). Most of these were submitted between 2021 and the end of 2023 but on occasion older applications were included in the review.
In total these applications concerned a total of 18,236 dwellings (i.e. individual houses, apartments, rooms in care homes, renovations and rebuilds) and of these 56/215 (25.6%) were sufficiently discharged during the review period (meaning the planning application, including any pre-commencement conditions for Swift bricks/boxes, was fully approved and work could begin).
These 56 applications applied to 5350 dwellings and of these a total of 1292 swift bricks/boxes were conditioned (24% or 1 Swift brick per 4 dwellings). When the results were analysed in terms of the year that the conditional approval was granted (i.e. the overall project was approved but the conditions attached to that approval still needed to be discharged, a process which can take years) then a pattern became apparent.
The table below shows that Swift bricks/boxes were conditioned at a very low density for planning applications receiving conditional approval up until the end of 2021, but this started to change in 2022 and onwards with a large increase in the proportion of dwellings in each application being required to have a Swift brick.
| Year of conditional approval | Number of planning applications (total dwellings) | Number of Swift bricks/boxes conditioned (% of total dwellings) |
| 2016-2020 | 8 (1374) | 39 (3%) |
| 2021 | 12 (574) | 45 (8%) |
| 2022 | 17 (1,207) | 369 (31%) |
| 2023 | 19 (2,132) | 839 (39%) |
The 159 pending applications at the end of 2023 concerned 12,962 dwellings and, given that these were submitted relatively recently, it seems reasonable to assume that the trend in the number of conditioned nest bricks & boxes will continue, so we can expect a minimum of 40% (or over 5,000 nest bricks) to be conditioned when these applications are fully discharged.
That planning applications receiving conditional approval in the years up to the end of 2021 were fully discharged with very few conditioned Swift bricks, suggesting that lobbying planning officers without any real leverage is an inefficient way to obtain a condition for integrated Swift bricks. 84 Swifts bricks were conditioned in this time and there is no evidence that our efforts played any part in this.
Two developments in late 2021/early 2022 did have a significant impact on this process. The first was accumulating evidence showing that nesting bricks designed for Swifts were also used by other bird species such as House Sparrow, Starling and House Martin. This “universal” nest site concept, combined with evidence showing that House Sparrow terraces, a biodiversity enhancement frequently favoured by ecologists, are very rarely fully occupied and at best only provide an inflexible ecological enhancement unsuitable for other species, provided a powerful argument to install Swift bricks as they would help a much wider range of red-listed urban bird species (https://cieem.net/swift-bricks-the-universal-nest-brick-by-dick-newell/).
The second factor was the “British Standard”, more accurately entitled BS 42021:2022 “Integral Nest Boxes – selection & installation for new developments”, a hugely important and credible reference for improving the quality of integrated nest box installations (https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/integral-nest-boxes-selection-and-installation-for-new-developments-specification-1/standard ).
To capitalise on both developments, we decided to go on the offensive and between December 2021 and April 2022, sent email updates to all the ecological consultancies recorded as being contracted to write ecology reports on planning applications in Derbyshire.
We described the evidence supporting the “universal” nest site concept and provided a summary of the British Standard, asking them to consider recommending Swift bricks in all new developments. Of these, some 20 (out of 45) replied positively, although to this day, with some notable exceptions, many ecologists fail to acknowledge the value of this document in their reports. Even now, we still find ourselves having to submit comments in response to a planning application where House Sparrow terraces are recommended as biodiversity enhancement.
Similar updates were also provided to the biodiversity officers, with much more positive results and in the majority of cases since 2022, they have routinely requested enhancements in line with BS 42021:2022. This doesn’t always go to plan as it remains the case that many ecology consultants are unaware of what the standard says and make conflicting recommendations: for example specifying Sparrow-specific nest bricks which cannot meet the standard as the dimensions are too small, and Starling-specific nest bricks which must make provision for Swifts being able to safely exit the box, e.g. a rough internal surface.
It is our opinion that BS 42021:2022 is a game-changer, as for the first time it represents a non-partisan, credible and highly respected reference for the integration of nest bricks. The problem is that the standard is not accessible to all parties as it comes with a steep price tag. However, if one of the Ecology Consultants and/or Biodiversity Officers can be won over and start quoting the standard on a routine basis then things might change dramatically.
The more observant reader will have noted the title of this blog ends with the words, “Part 1: obtaining the condition”. The reason for this is that obtaining the condition is only the first step in the process. Our next blog will address the issue of ensuring these hard fought for enhancements are actually installed when the development is built and, equally importantly, are installed in locations best suited to the intended inhabitants rather than the building contractor.
Acknowledgements: thanks are due to Camilla & Jon Barlow, Nick Brown, Catharine Gale & Mike Priaulx for their comments on the original text.