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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Patrick Barkham

​‘The hypocrisy is staggering’: will swift bricks fall prey to government fears of Reform?

Hannah BourneTaylor Reform Bourne Angela Rayner Steve Reed Zac Goldsmith
Hannah Bourne-Taylor
Hannah Bourne-Taylor: ‘Nature has absolutely no business being woke or anti-woke.’ Photograph: Sam Frost/The Guardian

On more than 50 occasions over the past three years, Hannah Bourne-Taylor has lugged an oversized brick through the parliament’s security screening.

Security staff know her fondly as “the swift brick lady”. But now Bourne-Taylor is having to ruffle political feathers over what appears the simplest of nature-friendly measures – a small legal clause requiring all new dwellings in England to include a £35 hollow brick, providing homes for endangered cavity-nesting birds including swifts, house martins, sparrows and starlings.

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