Hospital waste creates new homes for wildlife

Castle Hill Hospital worked with two community groups to create the homes for wildlife

A hospital has teamed up with two community groups to turn leftover wooden pallets into homes for wildlife.

NHS Humber Health Partnership, which runs Castle Hill Hospital in Cottingham, worked with Worklink and Friends of Alderman Kneeshaw Park (FAKP) to create more than 20 bird boxes, bat boxes and hedgehog houses.

The recycled wooden pallets came from what would have otherwise been treated as waste materials from deliveries to Castle Hill Hospital.

As part of the sustainability project, the community groups have focused on teaching practical skills such as woodwork and design to build the homes for wildlife.

Several of the wooden pallets used to create the homes for wildlife came from deliveries for the day surgery centre development

Amy Lockyer, commissioning and support services manager for NHS Humber Health Partnership said its hospitals receive "scores of deliveries every day", many of which arrive on wooden pallets.

“The construction of the £39m Day Surgery Centre on the Castle Hill site led to some green space and wooded areas being cleared, so we needed to ensure a proportion of that was re-provided for ecological purposes.

"Sustainability has been a key consideration throughout the Day Surgery Centre development, and so it made perfect sense to create the new animal shelters out of materials which would otherwise be treated as waste, and provide benefits and training opportunities for local people too," Ms Lockyer said.

The wooden boxes have been created to house wildlife such as bats, birds and hedgehogs

Abby Gibbon, senior employment officer for Worklink Cottingham said: "After discussing the project with our staff, we recognised the importance of giving back and decided to contribute by supporting this NHS project."

Debbie Morrell, project lead at FAKP said: "This project is all about empowering the community to take action to protect nature.

"We wanted to get people involved in the practical side of it, so this is where the woodwork came in."

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