A PETITION to make 'hedgehog highways' compulsory on new housing developments is heading for a million signatures.

Timloc Building Products, the Howden-based manufacturer of the Hedgehog Highway, say Government action is needed to ensure hedgehogs can move freely from garden to garden, which is what the Hedgehog Highway allows.

Kirsty Harrop, marketing manager at Timloc, is only too keen to push the initiative.

She said: “Hedgehogs like to roam up to two miles each night in search of common garden pests like slugs, snails, woodlice and caterpillars. The trouble is that garden fences create impenetrable boundaries that make sniffing out food and finding potential mates far more difficult.

“We’ve already designed and created our own Hedgehog Highway as a not-for-profit product to encourage both private home owners and housing developers to open up small gaps in their fences. If initiatives like this petition can convince the Government to back up public awareness with formal legislation, it will make a huge difference to the hedgehog population.”

It is estimated that the UK’s hedgehog population has declined from more than 30 million in the 1950s to just one million today. It has therefore been added to the Red List of Britain’s Mammals, an inventory of at-risk species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as ‘vulnerable to extinction’.

The new petition, which was set up by writer and ecologist, Hugh Warwick, calls upon Housing Minister, Robert Jenrick, to help acknowledge and arrest this startling trend by ensuring that all new build housing developments include a hedgehog highway, connecting gardens and creating the pathways hedgehogs need to survive.

Hugh Warwick said: “Hedgehogs in the UK are in serious trouble. Repeated studies have shown that the nation’s favourite animal is being wiped out. But there is something we can do to save them.

“We need to make sure new housing developments include ‘hedgehog highways’ - a 13cm hole in the bottom of a fence that allows hedgehogs to move freely between gardens to find food and find a mate.”

To add your name to the petition click here and click here to find out more about hedgehog highways.