The West's hedgerows should be better protected to stop developers and farmers continuing to destroy thousands of miles of important habitat every year.

That was the call from the Campaign to Protect Rural England yesterday, which said more than 16,000 miles of English hedgerows had disappeared in a decade, even after a shift in policies to persuade farmers to keep them.

The CPRE said although the amount of hedgerow that is part of measures to protect wildlife habitats has gone up, so too has the amount that has been destroyed.

Emma Marrington, rural policy campaigner for the CPRE, said: "Hedgerows are one of the most iconic features of the English landscape and it's important we do everything we can to halt and reverse their loss and degradation."

Since the last CPRE hedgerow survey in 1998, some six per cent of all the hedgerows in England have been destroyed – a total of 16,000 miles. Meanwhile, efforts to protect the rest have continued, with 42 per cent of the country's managed hedges being conserved, an 18 per cent increase on the last census.

The CPRE said it was not just farmers to blame. Developers have ripped out hedgerows, while others have been merely neglected to become a sporadic line of shrubs and trees.

The CPRE urged the Government to ensure the kind of environmental funding schemes introduced in the past ten or more years, which pay landowners to protect hedgerows, do not fall victim to spending cuts.

Campaigners said they want regulations to be amended so local authorities have more power to preserve hedges that provide habitat to wildlife and are a valued part of the landscape.

It is a criminal offence to remove an "important" hedgerow, with fines of up to £5,000.

The rules allow local authorities to save them if they are more than 20 metres long, at least 30 years old and meet criteria based on the wildlife they support, historical significance and features such as hedge banks, ditches or trees.

The CPRE wants to help hedges that do not meet the "narrow" criteria but are recognised as having a value to an area to be saved from removal or development.

A third of local authorities surveyed as part of a report by the organisation said such changes would be the most important improvement to the hedgerow regulations.

Some 42 per cent of councils said the most important change they wanted to see was for the rules to be made simpler, the CPRE said.

Ms Marrington added: "Our survey shows that the hedgerow regulations have made a positive difference, but it also makes clear that improvements can and should be made.

"The time is ripe for the new Government to make improvements that will give local authorities the power they need to better protect the great diversity of England's hedgerows.

"As ready-made corridors for wildlife to move through the landscape, they should be a critical tool in the landscape-scale conservation of our natural environment the Government wants to see."

But she said the regulations on their own, even with the improvements the CPRE is calling for, would not be enough to protect hedgerows.

"We also need ministers to continue funding environmental stewardship schemes that give landowners an incentive to preserve ancient hedgerows," she said.

"These could be put at risk if cuts to Government spending fall in the wrong place."

The CPRE said hedgerows are the most widespread semi-natural habitat in England, with some growing on earth banks built more than 4,000 years ago by Bronze Age Britons.