Residents and staff at 22 care homes across East Anglia have been creating new accommodation to welcome a different group of residents to their homes.

As part of the launch of their Environmental Sustainability Strategy, Black Swan Care Group held an internal competition for homes to create and construct bug hotels from recycled materials.

And the new hotels have been placed in positions in gardens at the homes.

Most homes opted for sturdy constructions using old pallets and drilled holes in sawn-through branches and small pieces of wood.

Other materials like twigs, leaves, shells, pine cones, and stones were then placed to create hiding places and cosy nooks for bugs, beetles, butterflies, insects, and bees.

Residents also enjoyed painting and decorating the hotels with flowers, ladybirds, and other insects as part of their regular craft sessions.

Most chose to name their bug hotel, with puns such as ‘Bee-n-Bee’, ‘Holiday Inn-sect’, ‘The Ugly Bug Hotel’, and the ‘Bug-tory Hotel’.

Judges reviewed the entries based on appearance, construction, and resident involvement to come up with a winner, which was ultimately chosen as Valentine House in Silver End, between Braintree and Witham in Essex, where the home supports people living with dementia.

Their ‘Bug-ingham Palace’ hotel features a solid construction, with plenty of living and hiding accommodation for different types of bugs.

And it has been decorated with painted flowers, ladybirds, and other insects, made by the residents at the home.

The competition was held as part of Black Swan’s a new Environmental Sustainability Strategy, supporting CQC’s assessment framework in the ‘Well-Led’ aspect of home registration.

Within the assessment, there is an obligation for homes to understand the negative impact of activities on the environment and that staff and leaders in homes recognise the impact and take active steps to focus on embedding low-carbon care and resource efficiency.

As a leading care provider, Black Swan is already supporting many areas, including:

• Installing LED lighting and motion sensors, which use 90% less energy and lasts 25 times longer
• Using water flow restrictors to allow appliances and filtration systems to operate at maximum efficiency
• Installing Electric Vehicle charging points, promoting sustainable transport alternatives
• Conducting solar panel assessments and installations: significantly reduce electricity bills, providing long-term energy savings, and making the service less vulnerable to power outages and fluctuating energy prices
• Using electronic care planning, paperless processes and systems
• Monitoring medication wastage and development: using dry powder inhalers cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions from traditional-format inhalers
• Recycling and waste management – using the correct bins for general waste, dry mixed recycling, food waste, and glass
• Auditing of supply chains to ensure their green priorities align with the group’s

Richard Lain-Smith, head of marketing at Black Swan Care Group, said: “We thought it would be fun to launch our Environmental Sustainability strategy with a competition to build a bug house and had some fantastic entries.

“Homes have been building them through February and March and now they’re finished, they’ve been placed out in our gardens ready for some new residents.

“We take our obligation to be compliant and supportive of environmental sustainability very seriously, understanding how our actions and activities impact on the environment.

“Every one of our homes has its own environmental champion who takes responsibility for how we fulfil our commitments.

“We’ve also had lots of residents who have taken a keen interest in what we’re doing and finding out more about how our actions have an impact on the environment.”