Secret World Wildlife Rescue

The works included the construction of a new part two and part three-storey wildlife treatment centre with piling and reinforced concrete ground beams, brick/block insulated cavity walling and beam and block ground floor. The building frame comprised structural steel frame with timber upper floors surmounted with steel framed pitched roofs. The roof coverings are metal with standing seams, sedum or felt, and insulation. The external walls are a prefabricated structural framing system clad externally with metal or fibre cement, insulated and clad internally with plasterboard or blockwork and with aluminium double glazed windows and doors. Finishes comprised screed and vinyl or carpet flooring. Soffits are metal grid suspended ceilings or plasterboard on timber joists. Internal doors are timber with timber frames. Services include plumbing, heating, ventilation and electric power and lighting. Associated drainage works were included as were works to paths, roads, car parking and landscaping. The charity has been raising funds for the new treatment centre for a few years and in 2020 raised enough to start construction on the new building which, when completed, will help its staff provide care for the roughly 5,000 wildlife admissions it sees every year. The new wildlife treatment centre is a big step in the modernisation of this local charity which has been operating under challenging conditions during recent years, with a lot of its facilities housed in temporary portacabin Secret World Wildlife Rescue patron Michaela Strachan says: “A new wildlife treatment centre will completely transform Secret World and enable the charity to look after more animals in a more efficient, practical way. We completely support this appeal as we know it will make a real difference – please do whatever you can to help.” The charity explains why there is a need for the new facilities: “From Secret World’s beginning, wildlife casualties and orphans were treated and cared for in Pauline’s farmhouse kitchen. As numbers of admissions grew each year, more and more of her and Derek’s house was converted into animal treatment rooms for deer, badgers, owls, hedgehogs and other species.” “Over the years, the numbers of animals outgrew the space in the farmhouse, and with ever-increasing standards of wildlife rehabilitation, the charity recognised the need for purpose-built treatment facilities.”