Ref. 28718-8A PRE-SCHOOL has been forced to surround its foundations with steel plate to a depth of three feet after a three-year siege by burrowing badgers.

Wire mesh had already failed, as had special one-way "badger gates".

Lawn Pre-School, in the grounds of the infant and junior schools off Guildford Avenue, has 12 staff and 60 children aged from three to five.

It was left with a slight list there was no danger after badgers chose the space under the building to dig a sett, undermining one of the concrete block piles it stands on.

That was fixed at no charge by Ashworth Road building firm Bluestone, whose property services manager, Greg Wells, is the father of former pupil Alexandra, now five.

As previously reported in the Evening Advertiser, parents sank wire mesh to a depth of two feet around the building about two years ago, in what turned out to be a vain bid to keep the badgers at bay.

The animals simply burrowed underneath.

Pre-school supervisor Linda Goddard, 45, said: "We first noticed problems about three years ago, with the badgers digging underneath the building.

"They made a home and started breeding."

Conservation laws mean that badgers can only be moved or deterred from a place during a handful of "time windows" per year, for fear of upsetting the breeding cycle of the protected creatures.

The Government issued the pre-school with a licence permitting them to deter the badgers, and parents of pupils rallied round to install the mesh.

Mrs Goddard said: "They worked for a few weeks, but then the badgers managed to get back in again.

"When we had another time window, we reinforced the barriers and put in special gates which would allow the badgers out from under the building but not back in .

"But they soon got back in again and the damage they then did undermined one of the piles underneath the building. Bluestone very kindly put it back up again.

"Now the parents have put corrugated steel plate around the foundations, to a depth of three feet."

Bluestone manager Mr Wells, 38, said: "It is the first job of this kind that we had ever had to tackle.

"It was reasonably straightforward because, luckily, the foundation which had been undermined was partially outside and easier to reach.

"We had to raise the building and restore the block foundations."

lLast month the Evening Advertiser told how Swindon's smallest railway had been forced to divert a planned track extension because there would have been badgers on the line.

North Wilts Model Engineering Society, which runs ride-on steam locomotives for the public at Coate Water, aims to build another circuit through woodland.

However, the plans must change as the proposed route runs through a badger sett and it would be illegal to disturb them.

Setts are intricate tunnel systems, and some have up to 40 entrances and tunnels stretching 30 metres or more.

Barrie Hudson