Greener neighbourhoods

This exciting project has been running since 2011 and is aimed at encouraging residents to make use of their gardens to grow their own food.  We began by including gardening tips with the help of one of our residents who wrote a gardening column in our newsletter and providing free seeds for tenants. We have also made available upon request, free hot composters to residents. 

New homes are designed to encourage the growing of food by providing hot composters, fruit trees and fruit bushes in private gardens.  We also, wherever possible include open spaces on our developments which can be used for community activities.

We have provided a nature reserve in Codford, which is used to host a number of activities each year for school children and residents. It is maintained with the help of Wiltshire Wildlife and a group of Wiltshire Young Carers.

We provided a traditional Wild Flower Meadow which provides a very pleasant landscape that quickly became a haven for bees, butterflies and other insects, as well as small animals. This will require little maintenance other than cutting once a year.

In Chilton Foliat we teamed up with Chilton Foliat Parish Council Clerk Ann McMath and Councillor Paul Outridge, children from Chilton Foliat Primary School and families from White Horse’s Field View housing scheme in the village to site the hedgehog homes around the edge of the development.

It was part of a project to make the development more wildlife friendly and included planting shrubs and fruit bushes. White Horse funded the boxes, which were then decorated by the pupils at an after school art club. They also helped put the boxes in place, together with families from Field View.

Non human residents

We also cater for non human residents by providing bird boxes on some of our schemes.

The relationship between human activity and nature is not always harmonious.  We aim to protect and encourage wildlife and biodiversity across our operations and help our residents to do the same.

On our new developments we have a good track record for encouraging wildlife.  We also have a sympathetic approach in our existing stock as well.

We delay external painting contracts to accommodate bats who have taken up residence in one of our lofts.  We also have several resident house martins whose homes take precedence over painting contracts, all with the support of their host 'landlords'.

We encourage our residents to engage bee keepers to remove bees nests and over the years a number of swarms have been successfully re-homed.