📝 Update
No planning notice has been posted at the Overstrand Garden Centre site — yet a development affecting hedgehog habitat is already in consultation.

That matters.

Because site notices are one of the main ways people find out what’s being proposed in their area. Without one, many residents and visitors simply won’t know this application exists — or that they have the right to comment.

In effect, part of the consultation period is passing without proper public awareness.

 
🦔 What’s at stake
This isn’t just another housing proposal.

The site sits within a network of gardens, hedgerows and green spaces — the kind of connected habitat hedgehogs depend on to move, forage and survive.

Break those links, and you don’t just lose land.
You lose connectivity.
And once it’s gone, it’s incredibly difficult to restore.

 
🚨 A bigger problem
This situation highlights a wider issue across the UK:

Habitat is being lost incrementally
Wildlife corridors are being weakened
And too often, it happens quietly
Hedgehogs are a Species of Principal Importance, yet they still lack the level of legal protection needed to properly safeguard their habitat.

 
⚖️ Why this campaign matters
This is exactly why we are calling for hedgehogs to be added to Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Because right now, their survival often depends on: whether impacts are noticed
and whether people are aware in time to speak up.

That’s not good enough.

 📣 What you can do
👉 View and comment on the application:
https://idoxpa.north-norfolk.gov.uk/online-applications/caseDetails.do?action=dispatch&keyVal=TAJGXELNGLL00&caseType=Application

👉 Support the petition for stronger legal protection:
https://change.org/hedgehogpetition

👉 Share this update — awareness is everything

 
💬 Final thought
Decisions that affect wildlife shouldn’t happen quietly.

And hedgehogs shouldn’t have to rely on chance to be protected.