Housebuilder donates homes for bees, bugs and hedgehogs at Buckingham beauty spot

The developer building a new homes for people in Buckingham is also providing homes for wildlife along the restored Buckingham Canal.

Barratt Homes has donated a bee home, a hedgehog home and a bug hotel to Buckingham Canal Society, to be installed along the canal towpath.

The housebuilder, which is building the new St Rumbold’s Fields development in the town, also donated £250 to the society, for maintenance tools to help with the upkeep of the areas around the canal.

Buckingham Canal Society aims to restore the historic canal in Buckingham, make sure it is a navigable state and provide wildlife habitats, cycleways and routes for walkers along the restored towpath.

The restored canal will re-establish a lost link in the national waterways network, and the project will be part of the green infrastructure of the region, creating connections between existing wildlife habitats and providing aquatic and wetland habitats for endangered species.

Spokesperson Athina Beckett said: “At Buckingham Canal Society, we do all we can to restore the canal as well as looking after and restoring wildlife in the local area.

"We are incredibly grateful to Barratt North Thames for donating money towards maintenance tools, as these are costly and something that we were in desperate need of to keep our vital restoration going.

"We were honoured to unveil our new bee, bug and hedgehog homes at our annual Canal Festival in late July and we are looking forward for people to see the wildlife thrive as they walk along the canal.”

Barratt North Thames sales director Marc Woolfe said: At Barratt Homes, we are committed to making sure wildlife has the opportunity to thrive in our areas, and historic places such as canals are maintained for people to use as much as possible.

"We love working with sustainable groups within the communities we build in, and it was great to see our donations already having a positive impact at an event such as the Buckingham Canal Festival. We wish Buckingham Canal Society the best of luck in their future work on the canal.”

St Rumbold’s Fields has bird and bat boxes located across the development, and flowered grassland for wildlife to thrive.