Lafarge's wildlife winner

Creation of habitats for rare species of birds has helped one 725 Lafarge UK quarry to win two awards for its work. Whisby Quarry, near Lincoln, won both the conservation award and community award at the recent BTO EDF Energy Business Bird Challenge 2010.

Run every two years, the challenge seeks to honour the best business sites for birds, conservation and people in the UK. Awards are given to sites where birds thrive and initiatives are undertaken to protect, enhance and promote biodiversity.

Judges said that Whisby’s success in the community category comes thanks to the close relationship between quarry operators Lafarge Aggregates and Concrete UK and 3808 Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, which leases a restored area. In the conservation category the site was applauded for the creation of a sand martin bank and habitat reclamation to encourage birds such as nightingale and warbler whose numbers have dropped by more than 50% nationally since 1995.