COUNCILLORS and green activists are looking at ways to create animal highways in Enfield.

Talks are underway on the creation of protections for the borough's wildlife, including pathways for animals to use to cross roads, signs warning motorists of the possibility of animals crossing, and safe trails through parks and woodland.

Councillor Alan Sitkin, who chairs the Green Belt Forum on Enfield Council, is spearheading efforts to look into the issue, and said it is something on the council's agenda for the future.

He said: “Some of us have an ecological bent and there are a bunch of issues to do with preserving wildlife that we are looking at.

“It would come under the bio-diversity plans, we are seeing what is being done elsewhere and but there is very little in the UK so far.

“We are in 2011 and the agenda is more advanced, the issue of preserving wildlife has really gone mainstream and is longer just hippies looking at it.”

Cllr Sitkin has asked council officers to explore the issue and look at animal highways in practice around the globe.

A scheme to protect deer crossing the road in Hadley Wood is already in place, and projects to protect frogs, deer and bees are just some of those discussed at a Green Belt Forum meeting last month.

A so-called “bat bridge” installed over a Cornwall bypass came under fire in 2009 for costing £300,000, or £27,000 per animal, and Cllr Sitkin admitted the ideas are all quite expensive.

But he vowed to continue to look into ways they could be incorporated into Enfield's road network.