High Speed Train will wreck wildlife

13/06/2011 21:36:38 High Speed Rail route
June 2011. Plans for the new High Speed 2 railway line, questioned by many as an unnecessary and vastly expensive waste, show that dozens of wildlife sites will be either damaged or destroyed by the proposed line.

Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire
56 wildlife sites in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire will be impacted to varying degrees by the proposed HS2 railway. Of these sites, 29 are of county importance for wildlife and four are of national importance, the very best in the UK. The route cuts right through Weedonhill, Lotts and Pipers Woods, and ancient woodland near Amersham; replacing mature trees and established plants with the concrete, steel and gravel of a sterile railway.

The route will also plough through Calvert Jubilee, a former clay pit but now a nature reserve for vast numbers of waterfowl. Woodland birds, rare butterflies and beautiful orchids depend on the special grassland habitat around the lake which will be devastated by the railway.

London Wildlife Trust
18 London wildlife sites will be affected including Perivale Wood, established as a nature reserve in 1902 and noted for its bluebells. The Heathrow spur line is likely to directly impact Gutteridge Wood nature reserve and the Colne and Yeading Brooke Valleys.

Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust
The proposed railway will cross the Mid-Colne Valley SSSI on a viaduct bisecting Broadwater Lake nature reserve. The 80 hectare site is renowned internationally for the diversity of breeding wetland birds and the numbers of wintering waterbirds such as gadwall, shoveller and great crested grebe, and summer moult gatherings of tufted duck.

The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire & Peterborough
In south Northamptonshire, the route could destroy at least eight wildlife sites of county importance including ancient forests, medieval parkland and limestone grassland. It will damage an important SSSI, and threatens the rare and declining small blue butterfly. A further ten important wildlife sites lie within 500m of the route.

Warwickshire Wildlife Trust
Up to 90 sites of wildlife importance could be adversely affected by the direct and indirect impacts of the HS2 route as it cuts through Warwickshire and Solihull. At least 80 sites are of county importance. Five SSSIs are vulnerable to impacts from construction, hydrology or fragmentation. The route goes across numerous major watercourses, ancient woodlands and wildflower meadows, with subsequent effects on their associated species. This could have a significant cumulative impact on the biodiversity of Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull, and could compromise efforts to restore habitats on a landscape scale within five of our Living Landscape scheme areas.

Wildlife Trust for Birmingham & the Black Country
The route will have a significant impact on the Wildlife Trust's Park Hall nature reserve, a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation at Water Orton. More than 600 metres of viaduct will split the reserve in two, create cuttings through ancient woodlands, realign 1,600m of the River Tame and remove access to the reserve.

Staffordshire Wildlife Trust
17 small sites of ancient woodland, including wet woodlands, will be affected as the route goes north to Lichfield; railway infrastructure could damage the hydrology of this unusual habitat. The Tame valley wetlands, part of the River Living Landscape area, will be damaged resulting in disturbance to protected species such as water voles and great crested newts.