On Tuesday 25th July, representatives from The Wildlife Trusts handed an open letter to the Secretaries of State for Transport and the Environment, and delivered a copy to Number 10 Downing St to request a response from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The open letter, signed by over 104,000 people, urged the Government to address biodiversity loss caused by HS2 Ltd and asks for an immediate pause on construction.
HS2 Ltd had promised to make up for the damage the route would cause to nature. Concerned by the huge risk to wildlife the current route poses, The Wildlife Trusts spent almost a year looking into the official HS2 nature loss calculations. And the numbers don't add up.
New evidence collated by The Wildlife Trusts show the calculations around nature loss that have been provided for the HS2 scheme are inaccurate. Even more damage to wild spaces and even more loss of wildlife is happening than was permitted when the scheme was given Government go-ahead in 2020.
This means not enough nature will be put back to make up for the damage being caused. Communities and nature are being failed due to simple but significant errors made, the lack of scrutiny by Ministers, and lack of accountability from HS2 Ltd.
Phase 1 of the project, which covers 140 miles of track between London and the West Midlands, will cause at least 7.9 times more nature loss than accounted for by HS2 Ltd. Phase 1 will cut a swathe across Warwickshire, and work has already had devastating effects on wildlife in the south of the county.
The track and associated lineside fencing will severely damage connectivity across the landscape, meaning wildlife including bats, deer, and many other mammals will have fewer natural corridors for movement and foraging.
Bats and birds depend upon connected woodlands and hedgerows for food, shelter and nesting sites. HS2 Ltd have not fully assessed the estimated impacts of the track on specific species, nor addressed these. Warwickshire Wildlife Trust is extremely concerned that losses of important wildlife habitats, such as woodlands, grasslands and hedgerows, will go unchallenged due to the undervaluing of nature uncovered in the report.
Ed Green, chief executive of Warwickshire Wildlife Trust says:
'This new evidence is damning and reveals a host of inaccuracies that are built into HS2 Ltd’s current approach. Our report exposes the absurdity of allowing HS2 Ltd to self-regulate without proper transparency and independent oversight. The company needs to be held to account by the Government for its failings. HS2 Ltd must correct its mapping and errors in its figures and make all its new data publicly available.
This vast infrastructure project is taking a wrecking ball to wildlife, and communities are in despair at losing the wild places - the woods, meadows and wetlands that they love – they will never get these back. So HS2 Ltd must repair nature in a way that’s commensurate with the magnitude of the damage being caused. The scale of errors means HS2 Ltd needs to provide far more nature compensation than it’s currently offering because it has seriously underestimated the impacts to biodiversity. We want to see a minimum of 10% biodiversity net gain along every phase of the route. This is surely the absolute bare minimum that HS2 Ltd should be offering after all the destruction and heartbreak it has caused.'
About the letter:
• The letter asks Departments to work together to make HS2 Ltd accurately re-map the loss of nature across the HS2 route, to properly recalculate the actual loss figures as these are informing decisions about biodiversity repair work (known as ‘net gain’).
• The Wildlife Trusts also want this information to be published and made publicly available, as the HS2 nature data is not currently transparent.
• The delay to parts of HS2 the Government announced in March are an opportunity to progress this work, as a matter of urgency.
• Over 104,000 people have co-signed the open letter. This includes signatories representing over 400 different charities, groups, businesses and families who all agree with the demand for a rethink of HS2 given this new evidence of the serious failings for nature by the company in charge.
