'Swift Tower' planned for council's HQ

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

A council is using government funding to put up a six foot steel pole with bird boxes in the grounds of its headquarters.

It will also be fitted with speakers to play the “call of the swift” at key times just after dawn and dusk to attract the birds to use its nesting spaces.

The ‘Swift Tower’ is also intended to be a “prominent piece of art” to highlight the “iconic, declining urban bird, and to inspire individuals to take action to help swifts and other urban nature”, according to the council’s green infrastructure team.

The tower will also have a practical purpose to provide additional nesting spaces for swifts and other urban nature, to help address the long-term loss of traditional nest sites in buildings.

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Community garden

The council’s planning department has granted planning permission for the pole to be placed in the ‘Incredible Edible’ community garden area, which is open to the public, within the grounds of Monmouthshire County Council’s headquarters at The Rhadyr, Usk, also known as County Hall.

The site has been selected as the best option for Usk, as it will be noticeable to swifts passing as they feed along the river Usk.

Swifts had been using J Block at County Hall, before an adjoining walkway was built in 2018 and providing additional nest sites could, it’s said, provide a “vital opportunity” to boost the population.

Recording by members of ‘Swifts of Usk’ has revealed Usk is a hot spot for sightings of breeding swifts in the county, with a breeding population at Llancayo, as well as at Usk Prison and a residential property.

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Red list

Swifts were recently put on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern in recognition their populations across the UK have declined by 58 per cent since 1995, and 75 per cent in Wales.

They nest almost exclusively in buildings, making use of holes to raise their young, but are losing nesting sites with old buildings being renovated to improve insulation or demolished.

To help these birds, nesting sites can be provided artificially through swift boxes or towers such as the one planned for County Hall that will have a wooden bird box with “12 swift apartments” on two floors.

The swift call audio system will be solar powered with speakers mounted into the larch cladding and cabinets housing the batteries mounted on the pole.

The audio system can be de-activated and removed once swifts begin using the tower and can also be switched on and off when required and as the site isn’t next to any residential properties it isn’t expected to inconvenience any members of the public but is considered as an enhancement of the community garden.

It will be visible above the trees closest to it, and from the County Hall carpark and across the meadow, but screened by trees further afield. It will not be visible from any residential properties.

The community garden is also used by Gwent Beekeepers, Please Eat the Garden community group and two schools as well as staff and members of the public.

The source of the funding for the tower is unclear. The green infrastructure team, in its application, stated it had received “SPF funding” which is from the UK Government while planning officer Kate Bingham, in her report, said the team had been awarded “Welsh Government funding”.