NESTING seagulls cost the NHS £100,000 after delaying work to demolish empty buildings at a hospital.

The birds were discovered in former accommodation blocks at the Royal Gwent Hospital, in Newport, that were due to be razed to the ground to make way for a new car park.

Gulls are protected under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, meaning it is illegal to intentionally disturb them while nesting, unless granted a licence, and offenders can face prison.

The birds tend to return to the same nesting sites and breeding pairs court in March and build nests from April before laying eggs from April to May, which take three to four weeks to hatch, with chicks usually appearing from around the beginning of June.

The nests discovered at the Royal Gwent, and a greater amount of asbestos in the buildings than originally anticipated, are forecast to cost the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, that runs the area’s NHS services and hospitals, £110,000.

It has been reported as an overspend on the board’s budget for capital, or one off spending costs, funded from an All-Wales programme.

In total Aneurin Bevan’s projects under the All-Wales programme are predicted to come in £2 million over budget but it has been able to off-set that through its discretionary capital funding which has a £2m underspend.

A note to the board’s latest budget report states further survey works need to be completed by civil engineers before the Royal Gwent project can be confirmed. Work has yet to start on the car park extension.

A spokesperson for the Aneurin Bevan board said it had delayed work due to seagulls nesting with the buildings eventually demolished in October last year.

The spokesperson said: “We can confirm that as the accommodation buildings at the Royal Gwent Hospital were vacant for many years and past the point of reasonable repair, they were demolished in October 2023 to provide much-needed additional car parking space on the site.

“As it was discovered that seagulls were nesting on the building, we sought advice from Natural Resources Wales to coordinate the demolition outside of nesting season so as to avoid any harm to the birds.”

The largest overspend, of the All-Wales funded projects, totals £1.7m on the Bevan Health and Wellbeing Centre that opened, in January, on the site of the former Tredegar General Hospital.

Demolition of the existing health centre and car park is expected to be completed in November but the project has been beset by problems with the board having to pay £1.115m to settle disputes with the contractor, including an issue related to asbestos. The figure has been budgeted for in the discretionary capital funding underspend.

The fund is also making up an expected £172,000 overspend on the 19 Hills Health and Well-being Centre in Newport, the first phase of which is expected to be handed over in December. Additional asbestos and utility costs have been blamed for the overspend.

Work to build a satellite radiotherapy centre at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall Hospital is expected to be completed by February and come in half a million pounds under budget, largely due to recovery of VAT payments.

Expansion of the emergency unit at the Grange Hospital in Cwmbran is expected to be completed in April and July but the board is “looking at potential options to accelerate the programme” which is currently anticipated to be within budget.

The board has up to £64m available this year on capital projects and its expects it capital programme to break even over the year.