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The protesting is ridiculous, but "Ancient Woodland" isn't to do with the the age of the trees, it's to do with the amount of time that some kind of woodland has been there. So young silver birch could well be a feature of ancient woodland. 

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4 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

The protesting is ridiculous, but "Ancient Woodland" isn't to do with the the age of the trees, it's to do with the amount of time that some kind of woodland has been there. So young silver birch could well be a feature of ancient woodland. 

Hence the emphasis on moving the soil and ground cover to try and maintain the ecosystem.

 

Jamie

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30 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Please tell me people aren't claiming that section is ancient woodland.  There looks to be a lot of silver birch in the edges of the cut area, they grow like b****y weeds around here.  I have potted one which sprouted in our front lawn this spring, it is now 2' tall.

 

"Ancient Woodland" is land that has trees on it for a long time - not necessarily the same trees.

 

Edit: Sorry did not see the above before posting.

Edited by Joseph_Pestell
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On 21/10/2020 at 16:30, Ron Ron Ron said:

Chilterns South Portal, looking from a vantage point above the future tunnel entrance.....

 

south-portal-site-image-3-1-jpg.640291

 

They are certainly cracking on with the works. But why does it need that much land take (width)? One of the strong points of a railway has always been that you move the same number of people on a narrow two-track railway as on a wide 6-lane motorway. Here they seem to be building to the width of a motorway.

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2 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

"Ancient Woodland" is land that has trees on it for a long time - not necessarily the same trees.

Continuously woodland since 1600 (England and Wales), 1750 in Scotland

The actual trees can be brand new.

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You can plant new saplings and cut down all the ancient trees and it still retains it's "Ancient Woodland" status.

 

IMHO it's a pointless definition to use as defence of a particular patch of trees.

 

Apparently the pear that was felled at Cubbington is hoped to be regrown close by from it's original rootball, as well as the 40 saplings produced from cuttings.

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2 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I think that's a reflection of the way that these protestors have a micro-focus on one issue, and ignore everything else. 

 

yes lots of them are obsessed with trees and nothing else i have just been kick out of a wildlife group on Facebook after they where complaining that peaceful protesters where getting arrested and that the police had better things to do 

i pointed out that climbing fences trespassing and climbing on to machinery was not only stupid and dangerous  but also not peaceful   

 

John 

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7 minutes ago, jbqfc said:

 

yes lots of them are obsessed with trees and nothing else i have just been kick out of a wildlife group on Facebook after they where complaining that peaceful protesters where getting arrested and that the police had better things to do 

i pointed out that climbing fences trespassing and climbing on to machinery was not only stupid and dangerous  but also not peaceful   

 

John 

Ah! Free speech in action.

It's fine as long as you agree with them, if not you're effectively censored.

 

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

The protesting is ridiculous, but "Ancient Woodland" isn't to do with the the age of the trees, it's to do with the amount of time that some kind of woodland has been there. So young silver birch could well be a feature of ancient woodland. 

Oh I understand the definition, my point is that any silver birch being removed can be very quickly replaced, even if it's not in exactly the same place.  The protesters should be offered trees for their own gardens; they'd soon be complaining once they were blocking their light.

 

Just to add, I am a Woodland Trust member and would like to see the proportion of the UK under tree cover greatly increased.  However I also believe that on balance, HS2 will do more good than harm.

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1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

They are certainly cracking on with the works. But why does it need that much land take (width)? One of the strong points of a railway has always been that you move the same number of people on a narrow two-track railway as on a wide 6-lane motorway. Here they seem to be building to the width of a motorway.

The tracks are quite widely spaced there because it's the portal to the twin bore tunnel. According to the drawings I looked at a while back, there is also some kind of allowance just outside the portal for the (probably never to be built) Heathrow spur junction.

 

The plain line stuff is much narrower.

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38 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

The tracks are quite widely spaced there because it's the portal to the twin bore tunnel. According to the drawings I looked at a while back, there is also some kind of allowance just outside the portal for the (probably never to be built) Heathrow spur junction.

 

The plain line stuff is much narrower.

I believe the provision for a Heathrow junction was taken out of the design several years ago.  

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"Continuously woodland since 1600 (England and Wales), 1750 in Scotland

The actual trees can be brand new."

Almost all woodland in the UK has been extensively managed over those 400 years. There is almost no "wild" forest. In forests such as the Forest of Dean were almost all planted as a crop., whether for building ships or otherwise. A great deal of woodland was planted and managed by iron foundries.

Jonathan

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20 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

"Continuously woodland since 1600 (England and Wales), 1750 in Scotland

The actual trees can be brand new."

Almost all woodland in the UK has been extensively managed over those 400 years. There is almost no "wild" forest. In forests such as the Forest of Dean were almost all planted as a crop., whether for building ships or otherwise. A great deal of woodland was planted and managed by iron foundries.

Jonathan

 

It's amazing how many tree huggers there are who don't know that woodland needs maintenance - a lot of it!

 

If you just leave it, you lose that biodiversity they are so keen on.

Edited by Joseph_Pestell
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34 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

"Continuously woodland since 1600 (England and Wales), 1750 in Scotland

The actual trees can be brand new."

Almost all woodland in the UK has been extensively managed over those 400 years. There is almost no "wild" forest. In forests such as the Forest of Dean were almost all planted as a crop., whether for building ships or otherwise. A great deal of woodland was planted and managed by iron foundries.

 

 

Just about every village had it's own woodland, which was managed to provide all the timber needed in an agricultural community. Unfortunately this management came to an end around the time of the Great War, when fewer men were willing to work in the woodlands. 

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1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

 

I believe the provision for a Heathrow junction was taken out of the design several years ago.  

According to the drawings here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-plan-and-profile-maps-euston-to-chetwode, passive provision for Heathrow is still included. (Colne Valley Viaduct sheet)

 

That's probably ruined a few evenings, I lost hours when I first found that page. All of phases 1 and 2 are on there...

Edited by Zomboid
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9 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

They are certainly cracking on with the works. But why does it need that much land take (width)? One of the strong points of a railway has always been that you move the same number of people on a narrow two-track railway as on a wide 6-lane motorway. Here they seem to be building to the width of a motorway.

 

One word - Stonehaven!

 

It is well proven that the steep cutting / embankment slopes left by the Victorians are inherently unstable and present a big risk factor, particularly when climate change is making extreme rainfall ever more frequent.

 

Take a look at photos of the re- opened Borders railway and note how there has been an awful lot of regrading of banks going on to make the slopes shallower via the use of Gabon baskets / retaining walls - necessary precisely because of the re-use of a Victorian railway formation with unacceptable steep banks.

 

Furthermore it is no longer considered acceptable to have maintenance workers put one foot wrong and its down the bank they go or have no safe way of accessing lineside kit without blocking the line and stopping trains*

 

HS-2 (like ALL reopened / new build railways) thus adopts the standards created for our motorway network which ensures a high degree of reliance and far less likelihood of slips occurring while also providing safe access to the lineside kit for maintenance and train evacuations / emergency access. The use of wide cuttings / banks is thus necessary  and avoids the need to effectively put the thing in a big concrete trench / on a concrete box, both of which would be far more intrusive in the landscape.

 

 

 

*From 2023 Network Rail are BANNING the use of the traditional lookouts and 'live railway' working at the insistence of the ORR/ HMRI. Thus even in places where location cases may have sufficient clearance for trains to continue to run, the work has to be done at night because to get to the case means walking foul of the lines due to steep banks resulting in there being no place of safety in which to walk.

Edited by phil-b259
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6 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Looking at the dvd of the route through Warickshire  I have to wonder just what the anti,s are going on about that track bed is not a problem.Look at a motorway build and resultant road its horrendous once its all running you wont know its there.I used to be anti but now I totaly agree with HS2 the worst time is construction and the anti  ,s  wont have anything to complain about once its running.

 

As someone who has locked arms with you over HS2 before, I am genuinely curious as to what factors have influenced your change of opinion.

 

As you say though, the construction phase of any project is the most disruptive and visually shocking phase, once the thing is open (particularly after the vegetation has been given a chance to get going again) HS2 will be considerably less intrusive in the landscape than the M40.

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1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

According to the drawings here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-plan-and-profile-maps-euston-to-chetwode, passive provision for Heathrow is still included. (Colne Valley Viaduct sheet)

 

That's probably ruined a few evenings, I lost hours when I first found that page. All of phases 1 and 2 are on there...

 

Dated 2013.

Have those been amended since they were first published? After all, there have been quite a number of modifications and changes made along the route in the last few years.

 

 

.

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The main factors a realisation that HS2 is a better alternative than a motorway plus the passenger numbers will provide a needed boost to the railways.At the moment the antis seem to be clutching at straws as witnessed localy when traffic lights appeared one even said that a level crossing was to be put in place.The main thing that has influenced me is that I now see a need for a fast direct line to the north at least it will be fit for purpose and will connect to the rest of the network.So I shall follow the work localy and report what I see.

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10 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Dated 2013.

Have those been amended since they were first published? After all, there have been quite a number of modifications and changes made along the route in the last few years.

 

 

.

Yeah, they're not exactly hot off the press. I've no idea what's changed since, but a bit of passive provision at this stage is probably relatively in inexpensive. 

 

Anyway, they're fascinating drawings either way, and are likely to be pretty close to the final design.

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1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Dated 2013.

Have those been amended since they were first published? After all, there have been quite a number of modifications and changes made along the route in the last few years.

 

 

.

HS2 documentation seems to be something of a nightmare, spread across gov.uk/hs2 and hs2.org.uk with some having been archived.  On a quick look I've found some plans from 2016 showing what passed through Parliament: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/plans-and-sections-as-amended

 

I also found this, dated February 2017: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/672162/A1_-_Development_of_the_HS2_Proposed_Scheme_v1.6.pdf

 

Quote

In its response to the Select Committee’s Second Special Report of Session 2015-16, the Promoter confirmed acceptance of the Select Committee’s direction, confirming that the Promoter will not use the powers in the Bill to provide passive provision for a Heathrow spur. An assurance to this effect will be added to the Undertakings and Assurances Register.   

 

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4 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Dated 2013.

Have those been amended since they were first published? After all, there have been quite a number of modifications and changes made along the route in the last few years.

 

 

.

 

A good yardstick is to look at the sections covering Old Oak Common - if they still show the the link to HS1 then they are obsolete.

 

However, its a fact that both the Heathrow spur and the link to HS1 including any form of passive provision have long been scrapped as representing poor value for money (each train to Heathrow / HS1 represents one less train to Central London where the majority of HS2 users want to go).

 

That said if all trains stop at Old Oak then transfer to Heathrow via Crossrail is not exactly going to be hard is it.

Edited by phil-b259
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9 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

A good yardstick is to look at the sections covering Old Oak Common - if they still show the the link to HS1 then they are obsolete.

 

However, its a fact that both the Heathrow spur and the link to HS1 including any form of passive provision have long been scrapped as representing poor value for money (each train to Heathrow / HS1 represents one less train to Central London where the majority of HS2 users want to go).

 

That said if all trains stop at Old Oak then transfer to Heathrow via Crossrail is not exactly going to be hard is it.

The point was made at the time that the constraints of building a high speed station at an existing major airport probably mean it wouldn't be within walking distance of any of the terminals.  And even if it was close to one of them then passengers from the others would need to use some sort of internal transit.  The real killer was that the direct Heathrow trains would have been a small fraction of the total (two of 18 per hour I think), so for many HS2 destinations a change would be necessary in any case.  

 

By comparison Old Oak provides frequent connections from all HS2 services to all terminals.  

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As ever, people see a Heathrow branch as just being about the airport. But it would also serve huge tracts of west and south-west London and the Thames Valley - population catchments that can not all easily reach OOC or Euston. Diverting more trains to Heathrow would relieve pressure on the rather limited platform capacity at Euston.

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Also remember that a large amount of the land currently disturbed at the portal is the construction compound and is temporary.

 

from here they have to Store and manage logistics for the TBMs, staff offices & welfare, Spoil handing & onward disposal And possibly also the logistics for the Colne viaduct.

 

as with the huge construction compounds and marshalling yards on HS1, these will be returned to nature upon completion.

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