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No cats please, we're from Surrey
Last updated at 22:37pm on 25.11.06
Threat: Cats are estimated to kill around 55 million birds every year in UK.
Britain could get its first ever 'cat exclusion zone' in a bid to protect endangered birds.
Under the plans to safeguard vulnerable nests, families buying homes in a 300 square mile swathe of the Home Counties would be forced to sign an agreement never to own a cat.
Imposing such a ban is the only way developers would be allowed to build 50,000 much needed homes near the birds' nesting grounds in the heaths of Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire.
The tracts of lowland area, collectively known as the Thames Basin Heaths, were declared a single 'special protection area' under an EU directive introduced last year.
The move - designed to protect the Dartford warbler, the nightjar and the woodlark - brought building plans to a halt, despite Government pledges for new housing in the area.
Following crisis talks between builders and Ministers, several solutions were mooted - including the covenant forcing homeowners to promise never to keep cats, or even dogs.
However, the idea, which was suggested by developers, has been criticised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
A spokeswoman said: "There is no evidence that a ban on keeping cats and dogs will remove the threat to the rare birds on the heaths." She said similar bans in high-rise flats were often ignored.
An alternative proposal from wildlife watchdogs Natural England, formerly English Nature, would prohibit development within 440 yards of the nesting grounds - a distance deemed to be the 'roaming range' of cats.
But other experts dispute the figure, saying cats can roam as far as two-thirds of a mile from home.
The RSPB, with more than a million members, has given cautious backing to the idea but fears cats may still reach the nests on or near the ground. Cats kill about 55 million birds in the UK every year.
Natural England responded to the EU ruling by imposing strict conditions on any development - even a single home - within three miles of the heaths, including the provision of alternative open spaces for people to walk dogs to prevent them damaging heathland.
Developers say the restrictions make it almost impossible to meet housing demand in such sought-after locations as Surrey Heath, Guildford and Woking, where average house prices have been driven up to £350,000. And they say they have had to lay off workers because of the delays.
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