A WOMAN has slammed the builder involved in a massive housing development after it refused to put up a hedgehog hospital in her garden.

Story Homes is behind the sprawling Fairfields Manor development situated on land off the A695.

It was granted permission for the 169 home scheme in December 2016.

Sandra Lowe, 59, of Gateshead, runs  Hope for Hedgehogs in Woodside, from her home on Delhi View.

Mrs Lowe takes in injured hedgehogs and makes sure they are properly treated, working with vets and getting up through the night to tend to their needs, funding the work herself.

The work is not cheap and it costs around £50 for each of the cute creatures to be treated and released back into the wild.

Mrs Lowe asked the builder to erect a shed in her garden which she would use as a ‘hogspital’ to look after sick and injured hedgehogs.

She said: “I started doing hedgehog rescue two or three years ago . So many [rescues] have closed down because because it is extremely expensive.

“Everything is self funded there is nothing that you can apply for and it costs a lot of money. I rely heavily on food and other essential donations.”

The former psychiatric nurse has asked Story Homes to build a shed in her garden to allow her to better care for her adorable spiky charges only to be met with refusal.

She continued: “They have the materials, the work force and it’s only a shed I’m asking for. After keeping me waiting for almost two weeks they have refused saying essentially,  they are too busy.

“I try to do as much as I can but I have metal rods in my back from when I patient broke my back at work and my husband is 70.

“They make millions of pounds in profit and they can’t even compensate the animals – it’s diabolical.”

She also paid tribute to the local community who donate food to her rescue.

Blaydon MP Liz Twist has backed the hedgehog hospital plan as a successful Parliamentary petition to protect the UK’s dwindling hedgehog population reached over 100,000 signatures

She said: “It was a real privilege to visit Sandra the other week to see the incredible work she is doing, and to speak in this week’s Parliamentary debate on protections for hedgehogs.”

“Sandra funds the endeavour entirely by herself, and it costs around £50 for each hedgehog to be treated and released, so it’s no mean feat.

“I am supporting her efforts to obtain funding to create a hog hospital, and on a wider scale, I am supporting petitioners by calling on the Government to be far more ambitious in their protection of endangered British species by raising the level of protection afforded to species like hedgehogs in the Wildlife and Countryside Act.”

However,  a spokeswoman from the developer said that the coronavirus pandemic means they lack the resources to help.

She said: “The rise in Covid-19 cases has impacted our business and the levels of resource we have available on site in relation to both labour and materials, which means that all of our efforts are focussed on trying to deliver new homes for our customers under extremely challenging circumstances. As such, sadly on this occasion we were unable to support this specific project.”

She also said the firm had paid a “significant” amount of money in the form of Section 106 contributions to the council to cover education, landscape maintenance, highways improvements and off-site biodiversity in the local area.

Section 106 Agreements are legal agreements between Local Authorities and developers; these are linked to planning permissions and can also be known as planning obligations.

The spokeswoman added: “In addition, we have contributed a significant amount of money to Gateshead Council as part of section 106 agreements that cover education, landscape maintenance, highways improvements and off-site biodiversity in the local area.

“We have also recently handed over ‘Hill 60’ to the local authority, which includes hedge and tree planting and the installation of pedestrian gates for ease of access for the public as part of an ecological island on the edge of our development, Fairfields Manor.”

To contribute towards the rescue’s running costs visit https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/tracy-sandrahedgehogrescue