Hopefield Animal Sanctuary temporary closure

Sadly we had to share the big news that Hopefield Animal Sanctuary has had to put in place a temporary closure to visitors for the time being because of the renovations and repairs happening around the site at the moment. We had been trying to juggle extensive building works happening while still remaining open, and it just proved too much. We are in the process of demolishing and re-building animal enclosures to make them more predatator-resistance (we have on multiple occasions seen foxes roaming around during the daytime and we don’t want to take any risks), which includes extensive work on all the bird areas.

We are also in the process of creating new visitor areas which we just know you are all going to love, and now we have some time to focus on what needs doing, we can get this wonderful new projects up and running too. In Lianne’s words:

“Running a sanctuary for animals is hard in itself but running a visitor attraction as well is even harder and trying to put everything together is just too much at the moment. For example, the day before yesterday we had a couple of trees randomly fall down – they weren’t necessarily old trees but they did come down so we have to make sure the fencing is secure, the animals are fine and that’s just another job we’re trying to do. We’ve got the tractor out and we’ve got some bases for new enclosures being laid as well.

For a few weeks now we’ve tried to balance being open to the public and making sure all the work gets done and it’s just virtually impossible – we just can’t do it.”

Keep an eye on our socials, the website and sign up for our newsletter to keep up with news on our grand re-opening, but we’re tentatively hopeful that it will be just before or just in time for our amazing Summer of Fun deal – the most affordable way to keep the kids busy in Essex this summer with one pass gaining you entrance to the sanctuary throughout the six-weeks holiday (excluding event dates).

We’ve had so many amazing offers of help to volunteer with gardening / painting, etc, and we would ask that if you are keen to muck in that you email us on office@hopefield.org.uk so we can begin to schedule the small army we need to get things ship shape. If you are unable to help out on site, we also welcome any and all donations to help tide us over while we are losing out on visitor revenue. Whether you sign up for our £2 a month campaign, or just want to send us some pennies as a one-off donation, we’re incredibly grateful either way.

See you again soon and thank you for your continued support.