Part of habitat protection is mandatory and part can be insisted on by planners. Then there are, of course the opportunities to enhance habitat or at least mitigate the damage done to it. Building in the countryside is usually more of a risk to rich habitats than building on brownfield sites.

One of the patterns (no. 104) in A Pattern Language is about ‘site repair’ where degraded building land actually ends up better after it has been built on.

Legislation

Some of the categories where you are obliged to follow the rules are:

• Land may be in a site of special scientific interest (SSSISite of Special Scientific Interest)
• Trees may have protection orders on them
• Various species of birds, animals and plants are protected.

Many of these types of things should show up during the local authority search.

The legislation covering this is the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. There is an introduction on the Joint Nature Conservation Committee web site.

The legislation is extensive and contravening it can result in heavy fines. For instance all bats in the UK are protected, as are their roosts, even if the bats are not present at the time of the offence. Even disturbing bats can result in a fine of up to £5000 per bat and up to six month imprisonment.

Now increasingly coming into force are the EU Habitats Regulations (which cover nature conservation in particularly sensitive areas). See more on the APIS web site

The actual schedules of protected species are listed at the bottom of this page and the full list of all protected species (with the various degrees of protection) is on a huge Excel spread sheet which can be downloaded from here. It takes a bit of figuring out and if in any doubt about the possibility of any listed species being present where you are building then it is probably best to call in an environmental consultant.

Code for Sustainable Homes

The Code for Sustainable Homes and Ecohomes assessment takes a broader and fairly thorough approach by listing environmental protection points which, if complied with earn credits towards the final score. The pre-assessment checklist includes such things as that the design:

• Contains a commitment to environmental protection
• Contains a commitment to environmental enhancement
• Contains a commitment to protect ecological features during maintenance and refurbishment works
• The policy must be implemented and monitored annually

Credit is awarded where all the following are in place:

Maintenance policy including:

• All regular environmentally related maintenance to be to best practice standards

And contain:

• Commitment to the local procurement of materials where and when possible
• Commitment to the use of local labour
• Commitment to the use of environmentally benign materials where possible
• Commitment to recycling domestic and maintenance waste or safe disposal if not able to be recycled
• Commitment to reduce domestic water consumption
• The policy must be implemented and monitored

Opportunities

There are several main possibilities for creating richer habitats -

• building nesting sites for birds and roosting sites for bats into the building structure

and see the Swift Conservation web site

• using living roofs. Living roofsA roof with a covering of soil or growing medium and plants. They tend to be divided into turf roofs with a 150mm layer of soil and sedum roofs with a thinner layer (about 40mm). see Living RoofsA roof with a covering of soil or growing medium and plants. They tend to be divided into turf roofs with a 150mm layer of soil and sedum roofs with a thinner layer (about 40mm). see Living Roofs, either sedum or turf, attract birds and insects  (with usually the former chasing the latter).
  It depends on what is planted but it is possible to have pockets of deeper soil in certain areas providing the structure will carry them. For instance a stone trough placed over a part of the roof above a supporting wall may provide the opportunity to plant buddleia which will attract butterflies
• providing ponds and wetlands  These can produce very rich habitats for all kinds of creatures and may form part of a waste water treatment strategy such as reed bed water treatment.
• creating food and shelter.  Especially in exposed locations in winter, wild life benefits from shelter belts. Particularly fruiting hedges such as Hawthorn with one side to the south are extremely attractive to smaller birds. This can go hand in hand with sheltering the building itself, which can have a considerable effect on heat loss.
• leaving secluded rough areas of garden which are not disturbed.  This works especially well if they are adjacent to fields or routes which animals take as they move around. There is a surprising traffic of wild animals within urban areas but it is usually dependant on there being a ‘through route’ to somewhere else (green fingers within the city).

Green Building magazine did an excellent article on this whole subject in their Summer 2009 volume

The Building Regulations