Urban, Built and Garden Environments

Suffolk’s towns and cities are not peripheral to its biodiversity – for an increasing number of species, they are a primary habitat. The expansion of urban and suburban land use, the fragmentation of the wider countryside, and the growing ecological value of gardens, parks, green roofs, street trees and built structures mean that the urban fabric of Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Lowestoft and the county’s market towns and villages now plays a significant and measurable role in nature recovery. This is an assemblage defined not by a single ecological community but by the principle that wildlife does not recognise a boundary between town and country, and that the decisions made by householders, businesses, planners and local authorities in the built environment have real consequences for biodiversity at a county scale.

In Suffolk, the cumulative effect of garden pond creation, log pile provision, reduced pesticide use, native planting and the retention of mess and disorder – the habitats that well-managed gardens tend to eliminate – can be substantial. Street trees and the urban tree canopy reduce heat island effects, support invertebrate communities and provide connectivity between fragmented green spaces. Buildings themselves, particularly older stock, house swift, house martin, swallow, bat roost and house sparrow colonies that have retreated almost entirely from the wider countryside.

The hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) is the assemblage’s flagship. Once ubiquitous in both the urban and rural landscape, its population has declined by approximately 30% since 2000, with losses particularly severe in the wider countryside. Urban and suburban habitats have become increasingly important refugia, and the connectivity between gardens – facilitated by small gaps in boundary fencing – is now recognised as one of the most effective conservation interventions available at the individual household scale. As a species that most Suffolk residents have a personal relationship with, the hedgehog is an effective vehicle for engaging communities in the broader work of urban nature recovery.