Nether Edge has joined the growing ‘Swift Street Movement’, as 19 new boxes and bricks have been installed, ready to welcome returning swifts for spring.

Fifteen neighbours rallied together to provide this endangered species with homes in time for their return in early May.

Swift numbers peak in late June, before beginning their migration back to Africa in early August.

Inspired by Hamza Yassin’s ‘Hidden Wild Isles’ series on BBC One, residents of the south-west Sheffield neighbourhood joined together on a WhatsApp group chat to organise the project.

They partnered with charity Sheffield Swift Network and Nestworks, to install boxes and callers – electronic devices with speakers that play swift colony recordings to attract swifts.

Swifts prefer to nest in dark crevices, and now depend almost entirely on our buildings to raise their young.

Chet Cuñago, a member of Sheffield Swift Network, who protects and cares for fallen swifts, said: “Sadly, we’ve lost nearly 70% of the UK’s swifts in just 25 years…the small gaps and cavities that swifts have relied on for centuries are disappearing at an industrial rate.”

“Installing swift bricks or boxes to replace lost nests – is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reverse the decline.”

The organisation recently praised Sheffield City Council’s development of Newstead, a former council housing site in Birley, for its inclusion of swift bricks.

They said it was “great to see new council housing being built in the city, and better still that it includes swift bricks, bat boxes and hedgehog highways for our endangered urban wildlife.”

Chet said: “If every new or refurbished home included these low‑cost measures, towns and cities could form a lasting refuge network for wildlife.”

Newstead will see 77 new, energy-efficient homes built. They will be a mix of one and two-bed apartments and two, three and four-bed houses, all for social rent.

Unlike swift boxes, built-in swift bricks are more permanent nesting options for swifts because they last as long as the building itself.

“The UK is among the most nature‑depleted countries on Earth… Developments like Sheffield City Council’s Newstead scheme in Birley show how small design choices can have a big ecological impact.”

Top picture credit: Robert Booth