After the flurry of excitement in getting a meeting booked with the Minister, Kit Malthouse, I thought that things would be a little quieter ... but no ...

Yesterday he featured in the Sunday Telegraph - and in the middle of the article there came this:

"The country should also do more to "make space for nature", he says, revealing that he is considering proposed requirements for developers to leave gaps between fences to allow hedgehogs to move freely between gardens. The proposal is set out in a petition which has already gathered 520,000 signatures.

The petition, started by Hugh Warwick, a prominent ecologist, and addressed to Mr Malthouse warns that hedgehogs in the UK are at risk of being wiped out, adding: "There is something we can do to save them."

It calls on the Government to introduce a legal requirement for new housing developments to include  "hedgehog highways -  a 13 cm hole in the bottom of a fence that allows hedgehogs to move freely between gardens to find food and find a mate."

Mr Malthouse says: "I'm a big proponent of us making space for nature and the natural world ... Half a million people have signed a petition for us to bring in a requirement for hedgehog highways in new developments. I'm very happy to look at that."The MP, a keen ornithologist, also cites calls for new homes to incorporate special bricks that can accommodate Swifts, whose numbers have also sharply declined in the UK. "I'm up for all that," he says."  

It was picked up by The Sun as well ... 

The only reason this is happening is because you have signed and shared the petition - I will not get bored of saying this - THANK YOU!

In other hedgehog news I was talking at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival yesterday - on a panel with bee expert Helen Jukes and plant expert Fiona Stafford - admirably chaired by Mary-Ann Ochota. I managed to talk a great deal about the need for habitat connectivity - and also why the hedgehog is such a special creature. 

oh - and just because we have the meeting with the Minister and just because the story has appeared in the Sun and the Telegraph - it is not over yet - we will continue to keep pressure on everyone we can so that in the end we get hedgehog-highways as standard. So just case you have yet to share with your friends ...