Bird boxes for Old Kent Road estate

A group of green-minded residents on an Old Kent Road housing estate has successfully bid for council funding to install bird boxes around their flats.

The Tenants and Residents Association for the Kinglake estate (just off Old Kent Road) were awarded £3,000 from Southwark Council’s Cleaner Greener Safer fund to install nesting boxes for swifts under the eaves of the estate’s north-facing blocks.

Southwark’s Biodiversity Action Plan includes swifts as a priority species for the provision of nesting sites in the built environment. Swift numbers have halved in the last 20 years due to a loss of nesting sites but small projects like this one can make a real difference.

Improving the local environment and making the neighbourhood a more pleasant place to live and work is one of the the council’s main objectives for the regeneration of Old Kent Road.

Old Kent Road ward councillor, Cllr Richard Livingstone, Cabinet Member for Environment, Transport and the Climate Emergency, said:

“This is precisely the sort of project that the Cleaner Greener Safer fund was set up to support. The boxes are a simple, unobtrusive addition to the flats that will make a real difference to the local environment and fits in perfectly with the council’s own biodiversity plans for the borough.”

Julian Weston, Secretary of Kinglake Tenants and Residents Association said:

“We just felt this was a simple project that will bring so much to the area. The swift boxes will help restore the local swift population, support our local biodiversity and will even provide some real life educational opportunities for local school children, including the nearby Surrey Square Primary School.”