Concerns remain for HS2 ancient woodland
The Woodland Trust still has clear concerns for the impact of the HS2 route will have on ancient woodlands along the route. They have 3 primary areas on which they are pushing for change from the DfT.
Nikki Williams,
Woodland TrustHead of Campaigning, said:
“Initial reading suggests that the full Environmental Statement is little improvement on the draft. Ancient woodland is still at risk and in fact even more could be threatened due to construction areas now being larger than previously stated. To destroy ancient woodland to make way for temporary building sites is absolutely deplorable – this is not about making sure the route is straight, it is just pure laziness and total lack of concern for irreplaceable habitats.”
Our three main concerns at this very early stage of reading are the following:
- Initial reading of the HS2 Environmental Statement suggests that the
construction footprintof HS2 seems far bigger than that indicated in the draft ES. This means ancient woodland that we thought was a considerable distance away from the works is now a much closer
- The use of ‘
translocation’ is still in evidence (meaning to transport ancient woodland soils to a different area in an attempt to salvage) despite there being nothing to support the effectiveness of this method. Data from supposed success as part of HS1 is distinctly lacking and seeming impossible to get hold of.
- information provided in individual chapters is still very cursory and in no logical order to really understand the impacts. This means it’s necessary to refer to several different chapters and at least two different map books. This does not equate to the "only a hundred pages or so" that the community groups have been told.
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