Senedd members have debated a 10,000-name petition calling for “swift bricks” to be made mandatory in all new buildings to reverse the bird’s alarming decline.

Petitions Committee chair Carolyn Thomas warned swifts are now Wales’ fastest declining bird as she led a debate on 1 October.

She said: “The decline is now at more than 76 per cent since 1995, even worse than since the petition was submitted.

She explained one of the main causes of the decline of swifts, which are red-listed as birds of conservation concern, is the loss of nesting sites.

She said: “Campaigners argue only a mandatory approach to installing swift bricks will provide enough new nest spaces to allow swifts to recover to anything like former levels.”