Arbeitsblöcke Vorschlag für „schnelle Ziegel“ in allen neuen Häusern

i thought labour might be running out of ways to make themselves less popular but theyve proved me wrong by picking a fight with endangered birds for no clear reason while also backtracking on a policy they supported less than 2 years ago. astounding work.

It’s the owners decision if they want to encourage birds nesting in their walls.

It’s starting to feel like Labour are going out of their way to be shit.

FYI these bricks cost around £40. Sorry, but if that’s unaffordable by developers then they are lying.

And cue the usual brigade, who couldn’t identify a swift if it sat on them and have only ever laid bricks in a toilet bowl, now masquerading as experts on wildlife and house construction.

I have birds living in a crack in my gable. They make a racket as early as 4am and shit everywhere. I’m not sure the unintended consequences of having „swift bricks“ have been clearly thought out – especially when we are asked to take bird flu seriously you wouldn’t want one part of your wall/garden/ patio to be constantly covered in bird shit.

Do these swift bricks actually attract swifts, or are they like all those ‚bug hotels‘ built into everything that I’ve never seen a single bug use?

Good, literally no reason why you can’t just nail a bird box to the wall.

Having a brick that you can’t clean out every season will just mean it’ll get filled up and won’t be used by any birds. 

I’ve got 7 bird boxes in my garden with removable lids, whenever I stop seeing birds go in them I go and clean them out for new birds to use. And they always get reused. 

The bricks £35, my bird boxes were £5 each. 
So why not just put bird boxes in the area, hell buy some bird boxes and go nail them to trees in the area if you’re that passionate about them. 

People whining about this are weird. Put a offer on a new house for £5 less and go buy a bird box? 

The problem with overregulation is rarely the cost of a single specific regulation but the overhead that comes with all the regulations added up,

While the brick costs £35 the cost of making and updating the regulation. Ensuring that architects, builders and bricklayer are aware of the new rule (each and every new rule) adds up.

You also need to ensure that the makers of swift bricks meet the government standard (which will add cost).

You’ll then also need get surveyors to ensure that companies are using bricks that meet the standard and aren’t just cheap versions with too small holes that degrade. If its to be correctly enforced, you’ll need to add workload to surveyors as well.

Then inevitably sometimes architects will forget the swift brick specifications, and even more likely the bricklayer, who’s trying to be as efficient as possible, will forget that in space x32 y43 the special brick should be put in and the house will be built without the brick. Maybe they need to redo part of a wall or hope no one notices and risk the cost of having to hire someone to remove a brick and insert a new one in (hiring someone to do that will cost much more than £35). All of this adds cost.

Then you take this small extra regulation and add it up with all other regulations and you get an expensive headache.

There is good reason that government policy at present is to deregulate and make building cheaper and quicker. We desperately need to build more quickly, cheaper and more efficiently whilst remaining safe.

Swift boxes clearly a fantastic idea that some housebuilders are doing voluntarily. But it won’t just cost £35 per brick. It’ll cost a lot more than that to have a rule.

You can also choose to hire someone to replace a brick with a swift brick yourself (or DIY it). Here’s a [good website](https://sheffieldswiftnetwork.org/how-to-buy-and-retrofit-a-swift-brick-its-simple/#:~:text=Where%20to%20install,large%20trees%20near%20the%20entrance) I found that shows you how to install one into your own home.

Unfortunately, I still rent so can’t do this myself.

I’ve recently worked on a project where we installed them. It was mainly parrots using them, but was rather cool seeing them so close up when on the scaffold.

Excellent news. Well done Labour on their first pro growth policy.

So Labour initially backed it when the Tories were in office. Now they have the seat, they no longer back it. Politicians, blergh.

‘University of Sheffield study found that 75% of bird and bat boxes demanded as a condition of planning permission for new housing developments had failed to materialise when the housing estates were complete’

Massive fines needed. A new estate around here was told under no circumstances must an ancient hedgerow be ripped out. They did it anyway and absolutely nothing happened. Councils are under massive pressure to meet house building numbers they let loads slide.