HMWT talks about HS2 on BBC Inside Out
Monday 23rd January 2017
Tim Hill, HMWT Conservation Manager, with Mike Dilger, Presenter
Our Conservation Manager, Tim Hill, spoke to BBC Inside Out London about the environmental impacts of HS2 on our Broadwater Lake Nature Reserve.
160 wildlife sites are threatened along the proposed high speed rail route between London and Birmingham across seven different Wildlife Trust areas. In Hertfordshire and Middlesex, the route will cross the Mid-Colne Valley SSSI on a viaduct bisecting Broadwater Lake Nature Reserve.
The 80 hectare site is renowned nationally for the diversity of breeding wetland birds and the numbers of wintering waterbirds such as gadwall, shoveler and great crested grebe, and summer moult gatherings of tufted duck. In addition Daubenton’s and pipistrelle bats, which are European Protected Species, could be threatened. Broadwater Lake is one of the most important sites in the UK for Daubenton’s bats.
Watch Tim speak to presenter Mike Dilger about HS2’s impact here until 21st February 2017.
For more information on the impact of HS2 on the environment please visit HMWT’s page here or The Wildlife Trust’s page here.