HS2 publishes landscape plans for Burton Green Tunnel and Kenilworth Greenway

HS2 has published landscape plans for Burton Green Tunnel and Kenilworth Greenway.

High-speed trains will travel through the area in a 400-metre 'green' tunnel as part of the controversial project but HS2 has said these new plans will 'focus on bigger and better green spaces around the railway'.

Since receiving community feedback in November 2019, HS2’s contractor Balfour Beatty VINCI has been working to develop the detailed design of the HS2 route through Burton Green.

HS2 has said that the new designs, which have been shared with the community, show how the roof of the tunnel will "integrate seamlessly with the existing landscape".

In addition, a key feature for this area is the realignment of the Kenilworth Greenway, which provides a link from Burton Green to Kenilworth and Berkswell for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders.

HS2 has said it is planning large-scale planting of native trees and shrubs in this area which will provide biodiverse habitats for wildlife, shield the Greenway visibly from the new railway, and re-establish vegetated connections to Black Waste Wood and Little Poors Wood.

To construct the green tunnel, a cutting is created along the line of the existing Kenilworth Greenway, with a tunnel ‘box’ including a roof constructed within it.

The cutting is then back filled with soils as the basis for recreating the landscape and ecological mitigation concealing the tunnel and establishing the landscape legacy for Burton Green.

Steve Fancourt, HS2’s senior landscape design manager, said: “As we work to deliver Britain’s new high-speed railway, we are presented with an unrivalled opportunity to leave behind a lasting, positive legacy for communities.

"Our designs show how we will ‘drape’ the landscape over the tunnel by placing soil to conceal the tunnel roof to support new native woodland planting, reconnected wildlife corridors and new public footpaths.

"New ecological features such as wildflower species found locally, and bat and bird boxes will create bigger and better wildlife habitats.”

Out of all the places to be impacted by HS2, Burton Green, to the north of Kenilworth, has a good claim for being one of the worst-affected villages by the line along the route.