Employees of McAleer & Rushe along with pupils from Royal Mile Primary School have highlighted their commitment to enhancing the local environment by planting a selection of flowers, creating a bee ‘hotel’ and designing a biodiversity themed screen on the site of the New Waverly office development in Edinburgh.
As part of Edinburgh Living Landscape, Leonie Alexander Urban Biodiversity Project Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh(RBGE), has worked with the company to develop a space to encourage insect life and help supportthe butterfly and bee population in the local area. Contributing to ‘A Square Metre for Butterflies’ the area is a place where companies are encouraged to devote at least one square meter to butterfly caterpillar food plants and nectar plants for adult butterflies.
The New Waverley Development will deliver 200 000 sq ft of new Grade A office space in the heart of Edinburgh’s “Old Town” which forms part of a World Heritage zone. Edinburgh was recently found to be the UK city with the greatest proportion of green space with almost half of the city’s area classified as ‘green’.
Kevin Byrne, Health & Safety Officer at McAleer & Rushe commented:
“We are delighted to support this important initiative working in partnership with the RBGE to enhance biodiversity in central Edinburgh and would like to thank all the pupils from Royal Mile Primary School for their help. As a company, we remain committed to supporting environmental initiatives and look forward to adopting similar measures at future developments.”
Leonie Alexander added: “This is a brilliant initiative by McAleer & Rushe to support local wildlife. This small green space acts as a stepping stone for insects to top up on supplies and the bee hotel offers high class accommodation for bumblebees, solitary bees and a whole range of other insects. The pupils at Royal Mile Primary School are super aware of pollinators and this is a great opportunity to contribute something practical.”
