New environmental surveys are being carried out by East West Railway Company to help inform planning and design work for the East West Rail line connecting Cambridge, Bedford, Milton Keynes and Oxford. We’ve written to over 600 landowners in and around the area to ask for access to their land in order to help understand local environmental conditions.
The surveys, which will be carried out throughout 2021, will gather data on plant and animal life, environmental features like rivers and streams, and historical features. This activity is part of our continued commitment to put environmental considerations at the heart of proposals for the new East West Rail connection. The timing of the surveys is key as certain species can only be monitored at specific times of year.
We’ve also taken the unusual step of publishing an expansive set of initial baseline maps in a new interactive feature on our Community Hub. These maps have been developed using open-source data from national and local government agencies such as the Environment Agency, Natural England and local authorities, as well as from sources such as the Woodland Trust and outline some of the complex factors which our team has been taking into consideration as we progress early designs for East West Rail. We believe this is the first time such data has been shared by an infrastructure project in this way.
The initial baseline maps have been released ahead of a non-statutory public consultation planned for early 2021, when we will again ask people for their views on the railway. Together, the environmental surveying and the feedback from the consultation, combined with other data and research, will help us to develop potential designs for this critical rail connection in a way which protects and supports the local environment.
Ian Parker, Programme Delivery Director, said: “Most of these digital maps are only available to organisations with the resources and technical tools to read them. However, we’d like to make sure that local communities have access to the same baseline data as the team here.
"We hope that taking the unusual step of publishing this data will help strengthen conversations with residents and their representatives – who have been incredibly generous with their time and expertise throughout the process. We are grateful to landowners and their representatives – including the National Farmers Union – for allowing us to gather the new surveying data and help create the right connections for their communities and the local environment.”
