Otters, bats, barn owls and badgers – all protected species – are being kept safe while land is cleared for a new village on a disused munitions factory site in Bishopston, near Glasgow.
They are so well protected, in fact, that their numbers are growing, despite a massive clean-up operation and building works happening all around them.
On a site that saw weapons produced for a century, there are now otter ponds, a bat roost and a "manor'" for barn owls.
The team responsible for wildlife and biodiversity on the four square miles of land is Solum Environmental.
It has been working for six years with the owners, BAE Systems, which has plans for housing, a business park, recreational space, community facilities, shops and a school. The Royal Ordnance Factory stopped manufacturing in 1999.
Otter ponds were built under licence from Scottish Natural Heritage, planted and designed to attract otters away from the most destructive works. A stone cottage became a bat roost for common and soprano pipistrelles and (potentially) brown long-eared bats displaced by demolition of outbuildings.
A "barn owl manor" houses a pair of breeding barn owls. By changing the management of surrounding fields and putting up feeding poles, barn owls were tempted away from the redevelopment area.
Solum has kept wildlife and contractors apart by creating a web-based GIS map, updated weekly. It has also set up a PhD project with Lancaster University to put the maps online.
The company developed a new approach to biodiversity planning and mapping, tailored for this significant site. Working seasonally over a number of years, it gathered information on all protected species.
Then it designed an ecological management system ensuring each species was protected and, if necessary, encouraged to re-locate during the most destructive works, which included stripping all the topsoil before re-development.
Jackie Wills is part of the wordworks network
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