BUSINESSES in the region are being urged to do more to encourage wildflowers on their sites.

Open spaces around factories, chemical plants and office blocks are often valuable wildflower sites because they are relatively undisturbed by humans.

The same can be said of derelict brownfield sites, which were previously used for industry and are waiting redevelopment.

Conservationists are urging businesses and developers to help wildflower species and endangered insects, such as butterflies.

English Nature, working with organisations that include PlantLife, recently published research showing that out of 1,756 species surveyed nationwide, 19.6 per cent were under threat, many of them appearing on the endangered list for the first time.

The report showed that types of plants normally found on farmland had nearly disappeared in large parts of the countryside and plants on unimproved grassland were also vanishing, many surviving only in small roadside colonies.

Dave Mitchell, English Nature conservation officer in the North-East, based in Newcastle, said the pressure on habitats in the countryside meant industrial urban sites were becoming more important as refuges formany species.

A key way of helping those plants was cutting back on management and letting areas develop naturally.

Perhaps the most spectacular example of this on a North-East industrial site came five years ago.

Encouraged by the launch of the Durham Biodiversity Action Plan, which encourages business to help wildlife, Philips Components, in Durham, reviewed its ground maintenance.

This led the company to leave a large area of grassland, previously mown every two weeks, uncut, resulting in the appearance of hundreds of orchids - the bee orchid among them.

Mr Mitchell said: "There is increasing interest in industrial, or even derelict, sites. Very often, these are the sites where the old flora hangs on.

"What they need is low-nutrient soil, which has not been fertilised and ploughed, and it is these kinds of sites which attract the vetches, trefoils and clovers, as well as the insects such as butterflies that rely on them.

"These types of site are assuming greater importance as the countryside becomes intensified."

Simon Leach, national botanical advisor at English Nature, said "We have been rather good at stopping rare plants from becoming extinct, but less good, perhaps, at stopping common plants from becoming less common."

He said he hoped that improved land management, combined with more environmentally-friendly methods of farming, would arrest the decline.

According to the English Nature report, species in serious decline nationally, include purple milk-vetch, which grows in the North-East, including at Teesmouth, and basil thyme, which grows on North-East grasslands, including some quarries.

Published: 21/06/2005