Local housebuilder, Barratt Homes North East, has been awarded the region’s first bronze accreditation for its wildlife friendly Show Home garden at its Cherry Tree Park development, in Sunderland. This is part of its ongoing partnership with The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Designed in line with RSPB standards, the Cherry Tree Park Show Home garden aims to highlight the importance of catering to, and encouraging local wildlife to benefit from residential gardens. To achieve the bronze level RSPB accreditation, the Show Home garden at Cherry Tree Park has been fitted with a variety of features that cater to local wildlife including a hedgehog highway to ensure that hedgehogs can pass freely through the garden space at night, as well as bird, bat and bee boxes to help create homes for local wildlife.
The bronze certified wildlife friendly garden, which was showcased at the Cherry Tree Park Kingsley and Maidstone Show Home opening in March, is the first of its kind in the North East.
Barratt Developments have been partnered with the RSPB since 2014, with a continuation until 2020 announced last year. The first four years of the partnership have been a resounding success, with both organisations working together to agree best practice on the types of plants and shrubs to use in gardens, the ideal times in the year to survey local species and how to make good use of existing natural features on new build developments. This expands further in 2019, with the next step of this journey introducing wildlife friendly standards to all new show home gardens, as well as a commitment to encourage customers and communities to transform their own gardens to give nature a home.
Ashlea Wright, Sales Manager at Cherry Tree Park commented: “The RSPB is a fantastic organisation which leads the way in UK wildlife conservation and we are so pleased to have a continued partnership with the charity. We hope that the RSPB certified Show Home garden at Cherry Tree Park is the first of many in the North East and we look forward to seeing the local wildlife bloom across the development!”