A High Wycombe school recently teamed up with our Cala Chiltern team to create decorative hedgehog gates helping complete planned hedgehog highways as part of our sustainability and biodiversity plans for the local area.
Helping ensure that local wildlife can flourish at our Farendon Fields development near Aylesbury, our Chiltern team provided local The Downley School with 30 hedgehog gates, giving Early Years children the opportunity to paint and decorate them, whilst learning the importance of local nature and biodiversity.
The school’s decorative hedgehog gate covers will help complete our Chiltern teams' hedgehog highway plans at Farendon Fields, allowing hedgehogs and other small animals to pass through gardens and connected fences, avoiding dangerous roads and pathways, and flourish in their natural habitat.
Hedgehog numbers have declined significantly in recent years, falling by an estimated 30% in urban settings since 2000. While no significant reason has been concluded, gardens with impermeable fencing is believed to be one contributing factor, restricting range and movement between foraging habitats.
Katie Nash, Early Years teacher at The Downley School commented on the experience, “The children had a fantastic time decorating the hedgehog gates.
“While we painted, we spent time discussing the importance of the gates and local wildlife and our children were very enthusiastic about helping the hedgehogs move around safely.
“The children were eager to paint the hedgehog gates as brightly as possible to encourage the wildlife to easily identify and use them.
“It’s brilliant that Cala are willing to support and engage with the local schools as opportunities like this offer children real life experiences and a chance to see how they can have a meaningful impact in the wider community.”
5 year-old Evie Cadet, a pupil at The Downley School, thoroughly enjoyed the experience. “I had lots of fun and decorated my gate in different colours like gold, purple, dark blue, red, yellow.
“We should protect hedgehogs so that they can live free in the environment.”
The Downley School also has a large outdoor learning area with sheep and chickens to help educate and offer children a first-hand experience on the importance of the environment.
Stala Thomson, Sales and Marketing Director at Cala Chiltern, said, “We are truly grateful to The Downley School for helping decorate our hedgehog gates. They look incredible and will help improve hedgehogs’ and other animals’ freedom of movement throughout Farendon Fields.
“We feel it is important to take proactive rather than reactive actions when planning the building of our developments and attaching hedgehog highways to appropriate fencing is just one small action we can take to support the biodiversity of the site.”
As part of Farendon Fields sustainability plans, our team has worked with ecologists from RPS Group to look for opportunities to integrate urban wildlife opportunities into each home and garden they build. As well as Hedgehog Highways, we have also incorporated bee bricks into boundary walls to encourage solitary bees to pollinate, bat roosting features and integrated swift bricks to help support universal bird nesting.
Visit our website for more information on Cala's biodiversity and sustainability plans.
Take a look at our Farendon Fields development page and contact our sales team on 01296 255054 to book an appointment.
