Housing boost for 'swift hotspot of the east coast' around Scarborough

Right: Putting up the swift boxes at Proudfoots Supermarket, Manham Hill , Eastfield , from left: Neil Brearley, store manager, Derek Armstrong, Proudfoot director, Sandra Branfoot, swift group, Rob Stark, swift group chairman and Nick Gibbon, swift group. Left: pictured at Eastfield Library, from left: library volunteer Sandra Low, Andy Malley, swift group, Sandra Branfoot, swift group, Richard Scullion, swift group, on the ladder, Rob Stark, chairman of the swift group and Nick Gibbons, swift group.

Eastfield library and the Proudfoot supermarket group are the latest hosts of brand new watertight and feather-lined nests for the flying summer visitors.

They join individual householders, the police station at Manham Hill and the Westway Open Arms as swift box hosts – and there are at least another 28 boxes ready for distribution in the Eastfield area .

North Yorkshire Swift Group has supplied and put up boxes all over the Scarborough area and similar projects have been run by other linked groups in Whitby and Pickering.

The group’s monitoring of swift nests during the summer months revealed Eastfield as a popular area for the birds, believed to hinge on their liking for the particular style of roof where they like to nest .

All the latest boxes – 50 in total – were bought with a £1,500 grant from Cash for Causes funded by North Yorkshire Council.

Swift group volunteers fitted the flat pack boxes together and most of the earlier boxes were made by group members .

Group chairman Rob Stark said: “The grant was a fantastic coup for swifts.

"I estimate half the nests in the area are in Eastfield and Barrowcliff where there are so many 1950s roof building styles.

“On March 19, we put up eight boxes at the library, six at Proudfoots in Manham Hill and in total we have erected 22 boxes in Eastfield this year, plus 12 last year.”

There are 28 free Eastfield boxes needing homes – contact [email protected] if you are interested.

Housing provider Sanctuary, which is to re-roof more than 200 homes in Eastfield and Barrowcliff, plans to buy and install swift boxes in all of them.

Beyond Housing is willing to install boxes where there are roof repair jobs if tenants are willing, in the Scarborough area.

Swifts are iconic summer time birds performing fantastic aerial manoeuvres and flying thousands of miles to feeding grounds in Africa.

Their population has declined drastically over recent years and part of their problem is a shortage of nest sites.

As buildings are modernised or roofs repaired, swift nesting sites are often destroyed or blocked off.