Overview
- The road is shut from February 9 to March 29 as volunteers help toads, frogs and newts reach an ancestral breeding lake.
- Charlcombe Toad Rescue Group expects to assist more than 3,000 animals this season, with roughly 600 collective volunteer hours.
- Since 2003, more than 50,000 amphibians have been recorded assisted on the half-mile stretch, including 3,995 in 2025.
- Last year brought the patrol’s first sighting of a great crested newt, with 2024 and 2025 among the three busiest seasons on record.
- The closure is one of only four such measures in the UK, with local reports noting traffic disruption and climate-driven shifts in peak migration timing.