A YOUNG fox lopes across the scrubland as a rabbit bolts for cover, a kestrel hovers in search of mice and an orange tip butterfly flits from plant to plant.

It is an idyllic scene and one all the more notable for being enacted in the heart of urban Teesside, only a matter of metres from a chemical plant.

Lucite International has been developing five acres of its Cassel Site, on New Road, Billingham, with the help of ecologists from the Industry Nature Conservation Association (Inca).

Inca, also based in Billingham, has been working with the company for nearly two years on improving the buffer zone between houses and the chemical works, which produces acrylic products for perspex, signs and baths.

The Inca team has overseen the tidying up the scrubland site, the creation of flooded scrapes for wading birds, the erection of nest boxes and the planting of trees and shrubs.

The work is starting to produce results, with a variety of flora and fauna becoming increasingly well established on the site.

Amanda Buck, environmental manager with Lucite, said: "The area is the zone between our neighbours and the plant and is also the most visible part of the site, because people can see it from the road. We wanted it to look good and also to encourage the wildlife living on it."

Among the features of the site is the variety of butterflies and moths, including orange tip and common blue butterflies and burnet and cinnabar moths.

Lucite uses cyanide in its manufacturing processes and appropriately, cinnabar moths use cyanide of their own to poison potential predators.

Among the mammals are foxes and rabbits and the bird population includes whitethroat, sedge warblers, kestrels and sparrowhawks.

Wildflowers include cowslips and three species of orchid, spotted, northern and southern marsh.

Jonathan Gibson, one of the Inca ecologists working on the project, said: "There was already wildlife here and what we are trying to do is encourage it by creating more habitat."

Fellow Inca ecologist Ken Smith said: "It is a good site for a variety of creatures and we are trying to improve it. We know, for instance, that we have snipe on the site and the scrapes will hopefully encourage them to nest here and, by expanding the reedbeds, we will help other birds."

Published: 07/06/2005