← All guides · Wildlife & the law · Updated July 2026

Herring gulls, cliff hedges and the Thanet Coast SSSI edge.

If you've got a hedge that sits above Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate, the North Foreland or any of the Broadstairs clifftop belt, two things change about cutting it. First, there are herring gulls nesting on the cliff face or on the adjacent roofline, and herring gulls have been UK Red-Listed since 2021. Second, the coast a few metres from your garden fence is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and part of an internationally-designated SPA/Ramsar site. Most contractors quote a summer cut on a clifftop hedge and mention neither. That is not good practice.

The Broadstairs coastline sits within the Thanet Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Thanet Coast & Sandwich Bay Special Protection Area / Ramsar site — designated 28 July 1994, covering 2,169 hectares. It contains the longest continuous stretch of coastal chalk in Britain and supports internationally significant breeding populations of fulmars, kittiwakes and herring gulls, plus overwintering waders. The SSSI edge runs along the clifftop, sometimes only metres inland from private gardens.

The herring-gull question

The herring gull (Larus argentatus) was moved onto the UK Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern in December 2021 (BoCC5). Since then, Natural England has progressively withdrawn the general licences that previously allowed nest-disturbance work. The current position: you need an individual Natural England licence to disturb an active herring-gull nest. In practice, on domestic hedge work, that means one of two options:

• Wait until the nesting season is over and the young have fledged, then work.
• If the work genuinely cannot wait, apply for the individual licence — which requires a professional ecologist to prepare, takes weeks, and is granted only on strict grounds.

For a routine annual hedge cut, the honest answer is nearly always: wait for October.

The legal frame

The underlying rule is section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981: it is an offence to intentionally kill, injure or take any wild bird, or to intentionally damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built. Penalties: unlimited fine per offence, plus potential prison sentences for the aggravated offences. Herring gulls (and their nests) are covered by this.

The main nesting season is 1 March to 31 August. That window extends into September for late broods — herring gulls on the Thanet coast routinely have second and third clutches, and I've seen active nests in the first week of September in Broadstairs. Treat 1 March to 30 September as the practical caution window for any cliff-edge or roof-adjacent work.

Separately, working within or damaging the fabric of the Thanet Coast SSSI itself is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended). You cannot legally cut vegetation on the cliff face, drop arisings over the edge, or damage the SSSI's cliff-top grassland strip.

Where this actually applies

The SSSI-edge and gull-nesting risk maps to the clifftop belt from Stone Bay through Joss Bay and around the North Foreland to Kingsgate Bay. Properties on the seaward side of the clifftop road are the highest-risk band; second-row properties are usually clear of the SSSI boundary but may still have roof-nesting gulls (a separate but overlapping question).

Well inland — St Peter's, Reading Street, Pierremont, the Gladstone Road four-floor terraces — the SSSI question does not arise. Roof-nesting herring gulls can still be present anywhere in the town centre; if there is an active nest anywhere on the same building your hedge sits against, the caution window applies.

What routine cutting can still happen in nesting season

A top-and-sides cut on a hedge well set back from the cliff edge, on a property with no active roof-nest, is usually fine even inside the nesting window — nesting law is triggered by actual nests, not the calendar. So if the property is second-row or further, the roof is nest-free, and the hedge itself is not being used by any small-bird species either, work can go ahead.

What definitely waits for October: any cliff-edge work, any work on a hedge or roof-fringe where a herring-gull nest is present, and any heavy reduction that would disturb the whole hedge structure.

What good practice looks like

Three things, in order.

Survey before I commit. A pre-works walk-around checks for active gull nests on the property, small-bird nests in the hedge body, and the SSSI boundary distance. Ten to fifteen minutes. Free with the quote.

Time the heavy work right. Heavy reductions and removals on the clifftop belt: October is the safe window. Nesting is over, the young have fledged, hibernation on hedgerow species that overwinter (small mammals in the base) hasn't started yet.

Never work directly on the cliff face. Anything overhanging the cliff — whether hedge, tree or garden wall extension — that would require standing on the SSSI to trim it is a separate legal question, and my honest answer is I don't do that work. It belongs to Natural England's ecological survey process, not a domestic garden contractor.

If your hedge sits on the front-line belt

Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate: if you have a hedge on the seaward boundary of your property, expect me to build the nesting-and-SSSI check into every quote as standard. That is not a paperwork exercise. It's the reason the herring-gull population is still viable on this stretch of coast, and it's the reason your contractor should not be quoting you a cheerful June cut without asking.

Sources: Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021) — herring gull UK Red List; Natural England individual-licence guidance for herring gulls after general-licence withdrawal; Thanet Coast SSSI citation and Thanet Coast & Sandwich Bay SPA/Ramsar designation (28 July 1994, 2,169 ha); RSPB nesting-season guidance.