News in brief

Today marked the ‘Grand Revealing’ of the new Sand Martin ‘bank’ at Stanford Reservoir.

The artificial ‘sandbank’, in the form of two raised cabinets, was recently constructed on the southern (Northants) bank, on the western side of Blowers Lodge Bay. Providing a total of 96 artificial nesting tunnels, the cabinets, designed and built by West Yorkshire-based Green Future Buildings, are prefabricated with the outer shell manufactured from 100% recycled plastic. The front sand-coated panel and the nesting chambers are made from Extreme Fibreboard. They were installed in just one day, following two days of scrub clearance.

In a nod to the festive season, the mulled wine and mince pies came out as key players involved in the project came together at Stanford this morning to officially declare the new nesting facility open. Given the seal of approval by Ian Martindale from the Severn Trent Water Authority, the project was managed by Peter Norrie of the Stanford Ringing Group, which provided 10% of the funding, while Tarmac, represented on site by James Pripa, provided the bulk of the financial assistance through the established landfill tax communities fund.