The environmental characteristics of the area through which the project would pass represent different challenges and opportunities. These are likely to be most acute for the proposed new railway through and east of Bedford, but certain local interventions along the existing rail corridor between Oxford and Bedford, such as new stations and depots, would also need to take account of local environmental sensitivities. Additionally, throughout the route corridor, construction activities have the potential to cause concerns for local people and would need to be carefully managed.
The project has been divided into eight route sections that represent areas of distinct identity and coherent types of proposed works, as well as containing discrete elements of new infrastructure. These comprise:
- Route section 1 – Oxford to Bletchley.
- Route section 2 – Fenny Stratford to Kempston (the Marston Vale Line).
- Route section 3 – Bedford.
- Route section 4 – Clapham Green to Colesden.
- Route section 5 – Roxton to east of St Neots.
- Route section 6 – Croxton to Toft.
- Route section 7 – Comberton to Shelford.
- Route section 8 – Cambridge.
Here is provided an overview of the environment that is crossed by the project, drawing extensively from Natural England’s national character area profiles. The overview focuses on the route as a whole. Project descriptions, more detailed coverage of the environmental context and preliminary information on potential environmental impacts and mitigation for each route section are presented under the pages for the Project and its impacts.
Between Oxford and Bicester the route along the existing rail corridor would cross low-lying flat fields created within the floodplains of the Cherwell and Ray rivers and their tributaries. The open landscape would allow extensive views of any new structures, although the area is quite sparsely populated.
The area falls within Natural England’s Upper Thames Clay Vales National Character Area, which describes the areas consisting “of open, gently undulating lowland farmland … underlain by an expanse of heavy blue-grey Oxford Clay and Kimmeridge Clay. In many places, the clay is covered locally by gravel deposits marked by extensive workings and flooded pits. The rivers Coln, Ray and Cherwell flow through the area, and the associated open flood plain landscapes consist of a regular and well-ordered field pattern, with willow pollards and reedbeds along the watercourses”.
East of Bicester the route rises across the low-lying northern Chiltern foothills past Poundon, March Gibbon and the Claydons, crossing a network of narrow lanes and footpaths as the land rises gradually eastwards.
Through Bletchley and east of Milton Keynes the route would use the existing Marston Vale Line (MVL) passing through built-up areas at the edge of Milton Keynes and along the M1 corridor. East of the M1, transport infrastructure remains prevalent within prominent road (A421) and rail (MVL and Midland Main Line) corridors, which converge in Bedford. The River Great Ouse meanders prominently through Bedford and is crossed three times by the route as it passes north through and out of the town.
The area from Milton Keynes through to Cambridge falls within Natural England’s Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands National Character Area, the profile for which includes the following description (paraphrased).
North and east of Bedford, hills mark an ascent out of the town. The undulating but low-lying landscape is dominated by arable farmland though with scattered woodlands often crowning the horizon in long views across the level fields. A number of tributaries of the River Great Ouse run west-east and north-south, their valleys forming a focus for settlement and tree cover. This is a quiet, rural area with a dispersed but regular pattern of scattered farmsteads and small villages with frequent historic earthworks and tall stone churches. Settlements are connected by a network of quiet rural lanes and rights of way.
While predominantly an arable and commercially farmed landscape, a wide diversity of semi natural habitats are also present … The River Great Ouse and its tributaries meander slowly and gently across the landscape. The Marston Vale … areas have been subject to extensive clay extraction for brick making. Subsequent restoration has provided opportunities for recreation and biodiversity aided by new woodland planting and other green infrastructure initiatives. Extensive quarrying of sand and gravel within the river valleys has also left its mark with a series of restored and flooded waterbodies that benefit biodiversity and recreation. The majority of the … NCA is sparsely populated. Settlements are generally located along the river valleys and more recently along major road and rail corridors. A feeling of urbanisation is brought by the numerous large towns, including Milton Keynes, Bedford [and] Cambridge, and major transport routes, including the M1, A1 and A14 and the Midlands and East Coast mainline railways.
The route would descend into the Great Ouse Valley, a broad valley with open, gentle slopes and large-scale arable fields. The valley includes large areas of open water, the legacy of mineral extraction, now used for leisure and often with enclosing woodland. The course of the river is marked by narrow woodland belts and willow trees. There are smaller pastoral fields along the valley floor with historic parklands sited on the valley side slopes at Little Barford with scattered parkland trees and small woods.
Emerging east from the Great Ouse Valley the route would align with the existing transport corridor of the new A421 dual carriageway currently being constructed by National Highways as part of the A428 Black Cat to Caxton improvements scheme, but would remain in an essentially rural landscape that rises onto the low rolling gault clay ridge that extends east from St Neots towards Cambridge. The East of England Character typology prepared by Landscape East describes this as “a gently rolling, elevated landscape with ancient woodland blocks and small, nuclear villages … often [forming] an open landscape with long distance views, although woodland contains views particularly around settlements”.
As the route bears south beneath the A428, it would continue across undulating farmed and sparsely wooded landscape, descending from the ridge into the broad valleys and lower lying land that have been eroded by the main rivers west of Cambridge, including the Cam, Granta, Rhee and Bourn Brook. Landscape East describes the area as “low lying, but gently rolling arable landscape … dissected by small streams and [with] a distinctive pattern of nucleated villages and patchwork of woodlands and shelterbelts”.
The approach into Cambridge takes the route past the villages that have developed along the A10, such as Harston and Shelford, which have expanded, leading to a more suburban context on the approaches to the city through this area. The route joins existing rail corridors that enter the city passing by Addenbrooke’s and Royal Papworth hospitals and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
