Highways Agency

Foreword from the Transport Minister

England's motorway and trunk road network is the core of the nation's transport infrastructure. The country needs roads to support the distribution of food and goods as well as for personal travel. But roads can adversely affect the environment, through the take-up of land and the associated impact on wildlife habitats; through noise, light and air pollution; and through animals affected by road traffic.

In 1998, the Government published its Integrated Transport White Paper and its associated document A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England, which set out how roads policy will be integrated with that for other transport systems, planning and the environment.

We need a balanced solution one which recognises both economic and environmental wealth. In the variety of plants and animals, and the habitats in which they thrive, we have inherited a valuable national asset. We have a duty to do all that we can to preserve this variety and support it for future generations.

Preservation of our natural environment has been, and will continue to be, a high priority for the Government. That is why I am very pleased to endorse the Highways Agency's Biodiversity Action Plan.

The Agency incorporates extensive environmental measures into all its work, from routine maintenance to the largest road-building schemes. For instance the £124million A2/M2 widening scheme has involved moving a 400-year-old ancient woodland, and building a new lagoon for a protected species of lagoon worm. The Agency is also the second-largest planter of native trees and shrubs in England, after the Forestry Commission.

This Biodiversity Action Plan sets challenging targets to protect and enhance the country's biodiversity where it exists side-by-side with our motorway and trunk road network. I have every confidence that the Agency will successfully achieve this important contribution to national biodiversity.

David Jamieson