Habitat Protection
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.
- Land may be in a site of special scientific interest (SSSI)
- 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.
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.
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
- building nesting sites for birds and roosting sites for bats into the building structure more +/-»
- using living roofs more +/-»
- providing ponds and wetlands more +/-»
- creating food and shelter more +/-»
- leaving secluded rough areas of garden which are not disturbed. more +/-»
Green Building magazine did an excellent article on this whole subject in their Summer 2009 volume.
There are many opportunities for doing this without a great deal of cost, especially at the eaves and in gable ends. The sketch shows how a soffit board left short of the wall by 40mm will allow various species to nest. Individual nesting boxes can also be built in for different bird species. There are now several products on the market which allow you to build nesting boxes directly into brick walls. See the Swift Conservation web site 
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.
