HS2 - Time to rethink
Ecosystems permanently damaged. Irreplaceable habitats destroyed. Taxpayer's money spent on restoration wasted. Wildlife extinctions at a local level.
This could be nature’s fate if the current plans for HS2 continue. The UK Government needs to stop and rethink.
A high-speed rail line connecting London to Manchester could, and should, have been a way to revolutionize green transport across England. The UK Government’s HS2 scheme received cross-party support and had the potential to help deliver on commitments to reverse the decline of wildlife and bring about nature's recovery.
The planned route passes close to our eastern border and although the line will not enter Shropshire, infrastructure upgrades to allow the construction of HS2 to happen will have a huge impact on the landscape around the north-east corner of our county.
In 2020, The Wildlife Trusts published What's the Damage? - a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts of HS2. Our report showed that the deep cut HS2 will make across the landscape could stop nature’s recovery in its tracks. Despite the risks to important wildlife habitats and of localised species extinctions, little has changed since. UK Government has pushed the scheme forward and the company responsible, HS2 Ltd, continues to demonstrate poor practice along the route.
To strengthen our case for action, we have published a new report that scrutinises the accuracy of HS2 Ltd's calculations around the risk to nature - and have found their data wanting. This new report, HS2 Double Jeopardy, reveals:
- Inconsistent mapping and modelling
- Wild space and habitats undervalued
- The benefits of new habitat creation valued as being higher than those of existing habitat
- Wildlife trapped between construction areas ignored
- Many ponds only partially counted, and huge numbers of trees not counted at all.
HS2 Ltd has not been held accountable for these miscalculations and nature is set to lose out. That is why we are asking supporters to speak up and ask the UK Government to act.
Construction works to enable Phase One of the line has caused irreparable damage to precious wildlife sites already. With no evident plans in place to achieve the very best outcomes for nature, HS2 Ltd must take the worsening impacts seriously, before it is too late.
We continue to call on HS2 Ltd and the Government to properly reflect on the scheme’s failings so far, listen to the warnings and advice from experts including Wildlife Trusts, and carefully rethink how to deliver the remaining works in order to ensure further catastrophic failings can be avoided.
It is critical that HS2 Ltd delivers – and improves on – its environmental mitigation and compensation commitments. It must embed the lessons learned from works so far, and go further to leave nature in a better state than before.
Only then can there be any hope of HS2 becoming a genuinely ‘green’ infrastructure project, that can support nature’s recovery instead of exacerbating nature loss.
HS2 and the environment
Hundreds of important habitats and special wild places are under threat from the government's proposed High Speed 2 (HS2) rail network. Ancient woodland, lakes, meadows and other important habitats are at risk. The deep cut and divisive scar the route will cause along the length of England's habitats pose a genuine barrier to the urgent action required to recover nature and restore landscapes. The current approach to HS2 means that a Nature Recovery Network would be impossible.
The potential damage is too great - especially while we are facing an ecological and climate emergency.
