Owners of new £20million penthouse suites at Battersea Power Station will have PEREGRINE FALCON neighbours after birds nested at London landmark in 2000
- Battersea Power Station penthouses will provide home for Peregrine Falcon
- Accommodating for the bird which had been nesting at the site for two decades
- Residents of the £9billion redevelopment are due to move in within a few weeks
- Studios apartments start at £865k and penthouses cost as much as £21.5 million
The owners of £20 million new penthouse suites at Battersea Power Station in London will have some high-flying neighbours including pop star Sting, survival expert Bear Grylls… and a family of peregrine falcons.
The birds – dubbed the Ferraris of the air because they can fly at speeds of 200mph – have been nesting at the site for two decades, finding refuge in the former power station’s iconic chimneys.
When the 160ft structures needed to be taken down and rebuilt, developers spent £100,000 on a new lattice tower as a temporary home for the birds of prey and their chicks.
The peregrine falcons have been nesting at the site for two decades, finding refuge in the former power station’s iconic chimneys
Developers spent £100,000 on a new lattice tower as a temporary home for the birds of prey and their chicks (pictured)
The £9 billion redevelopment project is now in its final stages with the first residents due to move in within weeks, but one of the last tasks will be to build the falcons a new permanent home inside the Grade II listed building.
‘They are Battersea Power Station’s oldest residents, having lived in the building since 2000,’ said David Morrison, a bird expert who is looking after them.
‘I have supervised two separate breeding pairs during my tenure and remarkably the most prolific period for breeding for the birds has been during the current redevelopment with a total of 19 juveniles being born.’
A worker at the site, who asked not to be named, said: ‘When we first started we had to place mannequins in high-vis jackets with Arnold Schwarzenegger masks around the construction site so they would get used to humans being in their space.’
There are 253 apartments in the former power station, along with a cinema, shops and US tech giant Apple’s new offices.
In 2014, Sting and his wife Trudie Styler bought an apartment off-plan in a block at the site designed by US-based architect Frank Gehry and Britain’s Foster + Partners.
One of the last tasks at the £9 billion redevelopment project (pictured) will be to build the falcons a new permanent home inside the Grade II listed building
Grylls also bought his flat there off-plan in 2015. He plans to live there with his wife and three sons.
Studio flats start at £865,000, four-bedroom family apartments cost at least £4 million and penthouses are £21.5 million.
The power station had been empty since it was decommissioned in 1983 and was finally bought for £400 million by a Malaysian consortium in 2012.
In the 1950s, the peregrine falcon population in Britain almost collapsed due to the use of a pesticide called DDT.
DDT was banned 30 years later and since then, numbers have increased dramatically.
In 2000, there were just three breeding pairs in London. There are now more than 30.
Now they will have a plum spot overlooking the River Thames.
The regeneration of the power station is part of a wider development of a 42-acre site that includes an extension to the London Underground’s Northern Line.