DEVELOPERS across the region are being urged to back a scheme which can save them money while helping to preserve an endangered butterfly.

The dingy skipper has suffered a massive decline over the past 25 years because of development of the brownfield sites on which it lives.

Butterfly Conservation is asking companies to create and preserve habitats within their development projects, helping them save money on landscaping costs.

The organisation is running a two-year project aimed at conserving what has become one of the North-East's rarest butterflies.

Project officer Dave Wainwright, who is based in Langley Moor, near Durham, said: "This species has been particularly hard-hit by redevelopment of brownfield sites and lack of appropriate site management.

"Most of the sites on which we have had it recorded are either disused or abandoned. Eighty per cent of those sites in the North-East are brownfield."

They include old quarries, former pit and factory sites and railway lines, both used and disused, as well as the site of former railway engineering plants.

Dingy skippers like brownfield sites because they rely on sparse vegetation with areas of bare soil, the kind of place which supports their main food plant, the bird's-foot trefoil.

Mr Wainwright said: "The butterfly is massively in decline. It is estimated that it has declined by up to 50 per cent over the past 20 to 25 years.

"The reasons are redevelopment of the type of brownfield sites which it likes.

"The mining industry has gone, opencasting has reduced, the railway industry is declining, and these sites are being tidied up and redeveloped."

One of the problems is that ideal dingy skipper habitat can look scruffy, but Mr Wainwright believes developers and planning officers need to pay more attention to the insect's needs.

He cites an example where such an approach has proved successful. During the planning stage for the Locomotion: National Railway Museum, in Shildon, County Durham, Butterfly Conservation worked with officers from Sedgefield Borough Council to protect dingy skippers already on the brownfield site earmarked for the complex. The result is that part of the site retains the ideal habitat and the butterflies are thriving.

Mr Wainwright said: "From what I have seen, it has worked well."

He also points out that developers deciding to leave areas for dingy skipper and the myriad of other insects and wildflowers which brownfield sites support, can save money on reduced landscaping bills.

Mr Wainwright said: "The problem is that dingy skipper is not legally protected like great crested newts and badgers. However, projects like the one at Shildon show what can be achieved by awareness and education.

"We believe that the butterfly has the potential to recover, and that colonies can be self-sustaining if sites are protected from development and are well managed."

Published: 26/04/2005