Lorries rumble across the A14 bridge north of Cambridge, passing over steep embankments adorned with plastic shields that house the withered remains of trees. Occasionally, a splash of green appears where a young hawthorn or a budding honeysuckle has defiantly sprouted amidst the barren surroundings. This resilience to adversity, however, is rare in the otherwise treeless landscape.
The A14, a 21-mile stretch connecting Cambridge to Huntingdon, was completed in 2020 at a cost of £1.5 billion, as part of a grander aim to spur growth in the UK. This megaproject, one of the most significant infrastructure undertakings of the past decade, was approved despite the opposition of local authorities.
In conjunction with the project’s launch, National Highways, the organization responsible for Britain’s A roads, vowed to achieve a biodiversity net gain of 11.5%. In essence, they promised that the natural environment would be in a much better state post-construction than before. However, five years after the completion of the A14, evidence suggests that the biodiversity and environmental condition are unfortunately worse than previously feared. This disconnect has brought to light concerns about the validity of environmental promises made by corporations and governments in the context of development projects.
Mile upon mile of empty plastic tree guards line the new road, serving as a grim testament to the widespread die-off of the 860,000 trees that were originally planted to mitigate the road’s environmental impact. Additionally, animal pathways known as culverts have been neglected, leaving them littered and abandoned, while ponds designed for wildlife have become clogged with debris. The situation has raised anxieties about the weakening of environmental protections in the UK government’s planning and infrastructure bill, which may facilitate future destruction of natural habitats. Edna Murphy, a Liberal Democrat on the Cambridgeshire county council, is among those advocating for an investigation into the failure of the A14 project, criticizing National Highways for what she deems a lack of accountability.
Ms. Murphy and her Liberal Democrat colleague, Ros Hathorn, argue that the failure of environmental measures associated with the A14 is emblematic of developers making insincere environmental pledges to secure planning permissions, only to disregard them afterwards. In 2021, as the scale of tree deaths became clear, they sought details about the number of trees planted, those that had perished, and the status of replanting efforts. However, National Highways offered only vague explanations for the die-offs.
According to a 2022 presentation, it was revealed that an estimated 70% of the initial tree planting failed. Further admissions from National Highways in late 2023 suggested that two replanting attempts had also failed. The replanting strategy, simply replanting trees of the same species in the same areas, was criticized as a haphazard approach without proper environmental analysis or contingency planning.
Ecological experts emphasize the importance of rigorous ecological surveys and adaptive management to address such potential failures. A third round of replanting took place in 2023-2024, at a cost of approximately £2.9m. The success of this latest initiative remains uncertain due to a lack of transparency and oversight from National Highways.
The plight of the A14 project underscores a larger challenge in enforcing environmental promises in infrastructure projects. With biodiversity net gain set to become mandatory for large infrastructure developments from 2026, there is a pressing need to ensure accountability and the long-term viability of created habitats.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/05/cambridgeshire-a14-road-wildlife-environmental-disaster
