We’re not alone in suffering a housing crisis – swifts are too, relying on dwindling building cavities to breed. It’s time, says Hannah Bourne-Taylor, that housebuilders and government step up to protect this iconic bird.
Within the housebuilding industry, lies the existence of one of the most iconic birds on earth: Swifts. 100% reliant on building cavities to breed, they spend more time airborne than any other bird. Yet when they come home, they nest next to us in the exact nook they left nine months before, having not landed once.
Increasingly, they return to find their homes blocked thanks to renovation and insulation. As a category, cavity nesters have no legal protection of their nesting habitat outside breeding season and no mitigation for the loss of it, resulting in four species threatened with extinction.
The swift population is fewer than 40,000 UK pairs (compared to 5.8 million blackbirds), dropping by 19,000 pairs since 2020 after a 60% breeding decline since the 1990s. They’re not a species that can ‘bounce back’ with only one small brood annually.
If they can’t breed, they can’t stabilise their populations and no modern buildings will ever offer any cavity nesting habitat. Enter the swift brick, for just a brick with a hole in it would secure their nesting habitat.
Zero maintenance, fully sustainable and readily available from brick manufacturers, the solution is effective. But swift bricks need to be installed urgently, on a national scale, to give swifts a fighting chance.
I have led a campaign to mandate swift bricks since 2022. The responsibility of saving swifts feels like a game of ‘hot potato’ between the government and the housebuilders. Housebuilders say that if the government deems it necessary, they’ll mandate.
Government environmental advisers do deem it necessary and Natural England, along with experts and environmental non-government organisations (eNGOs) are all urging the government to mandate.
Murray Davidson, the former vice-chair of the Association of Local Government Ecologists, says: “Leaving swift bricks to planning authorities to implement through planning conditions, local planning policies or supplementary guidance, is neither an effective nor efficient way to implement an urgent conservation measure.”
Meanwhile, the government offers reassurances that housebuilders have made voluntary commitments to install swift bricks and a planning policy is intended. The problem is, I, and the cross-party politicians who advocate for adding swift bricks to Building Regulations, know the stats.
Non-compliance of developers installing bird boxes is 75% when stipulated by Local Planning Authorities, and LPA enforcement teams are either under-resourced or non-existent. A 2022 Royal Town Planning Institute study showed they were 80% inefficient and therefore ineffective.
In 2024, members of the HBF were asked by Lord Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative peer and former UK environment minister who leads the political campaign, if they objected to mandating swift bricks in a government meeting. The answer was no, but none have advocated, missing this unique opportunity.
Environmentalist Zac Goldsmith’s message to the industry to help the only category of wildlife directly dependent on buildings to survive is clear: “Numerous housebuilders have already made voluntary commitments, but given these commitments are intended to match legislation that has cross-party backing, I urge housebuilders to remove any doubt.”
“It is no exaggeration to say that the industry has an opportunity to prevent the national extinction of an iconic bird, and with minimal effort and minimal cost. It is such a positive, easy and popular thing to achieve. We really do need the sector to step up.”
Rachel Danemann, HBF regional planning manager, says many developers are now voluntarily installing swift boxes as a matter of course, in part as Local Plans are increasingly requiring that they are included on new sites.
“While we always need to ensure there is the right balance between housing supply and environmental objectives, and they may not be appropriate in every location, swift boxes, alongside biodiversity net gain requirements, are ensuring that new developments are providing desperately needed new homes and enhancing the natural environment,” says Danemann.
Some people worry that action would open the floodgates to all biodiversity measures but the others, such as hedgehog holes, are supplementary, making them incomparable.
Another divide is that mandating swift bricks is feasible thanks to the specific British Standard, removing the need for ecological expertise. Any brickie can lay a swift brick and there’s no risk of blocking development and, like all British Standards, there are exemptions.
Some people wrongly think swift bricks house vermin, but the British Standard ensures they’re placed where only birds can access, otherwise the ‘vermin’ would eat the chicks, making the measure ineffective. They simply simulate a nesting habitat we have lived alongside for centuries so no new problems arise.
Swift champions are appearing from within the industry, such as Adrian Collins, non-executive chair of LSL.
“Considering what is at stake – the very existence of one of Britain’s most iconic species – the industry should step up and back swift brick legislation,” says Collins.
“It’s no hardship, since much of industry has already committed to matching what’s being proposed and it would eliminate the doubt of voluntary commitments, level the playing field and housebuilders would rightfully be able to claim they’re true custodians of urban birds. If this country doesn’t mandate swift bricks, there is a real risk that the nesting habitat of cavity nesting birds won’t be secured in time, or at the nationwide scale needed, for the critically endangered species to stabilise and Britain will be the first country to let swifts become nationally extinct.”
The eight species of birds who nest in swift bricks are everyone’s closest connection to nature, no matter our age, mobility or location. Our home is their home. Will the building industry and the government embrace this simple measure to create a joyous, tangible legacy?
Without swift bricks, all new homes will be sterile of this connection, so where is the resistance coming from? If you think voluntary measures are enough, then why does any legislation exist?
I have rescued, raised and released swifts. They are like no other. Irreplaceable birds, which, after 50 million years of existence, simply need a brick with a hole in it. Join the fight. Advocate for swift bricks to be mandated, because once swifts are gone, they’re gone forever.
Hannah Bourne-Taylor is a bird conservationist, founder of The Feather Speech, a campaign to help swifts and other endangered birds, and the author of Nature Needs You: The fight to save our swifts.
This article was first featured in Show House Magazine. Read more like this and the latest industry insight here.
