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Landscape
Overview of Effects
The Scheme crosses undulating ground in a wide sweeping curve across several shallow river valleys which open up panoramic views from and to the Scheme where it follows higher ground or cuts through ridgelines. The landscape surrounding the existing motorway includes the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), Colne Valley Park and Watling Chase Community Forest. There are also numerous towns, villages, scattered houses, public rights of way, roads and railways. The existing motorway is currently a visible element in many views, particularly where it crosses rivers or dry valleys or is on high embankments or viaducts.
The Scheme will have an impact on the landscape and views resulting from the initial loss of vegetation within the motorway fence line and from new gantries, signs and lighting. Effects will be reduced in the long term by new planting, enhancement of existing vegetation and environmental barriers. These will help to screen the Scheme from sensitive viewpoints and assist with its wider visual integration into the landscape.
Chilterns AONB Existing
Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) are areas of countryside with significant landscape value and scenic quality.
The Chilterns AONB is located just north of Junction 18, largely to the north and north west enclosing both sides of the motorway.
The AONB is characterised by smooth, rounded, chalky slopes and valleys with only a few rivers that run north-west to south-east. The area is dominated by the River Chess, a feature surrounded by a wide, flat, pastoral flood plain, occasionally enclosed by alders and other small trees. The valley side rise steeply and are often clothed with beech, mixed with farmland.
This mix of landform and vegetation, with the absence of railways and major roads, produces a tight, enclosed, harmonious and secret landscape. The buildings and settlements complement the harmony of the landscape, with a scattering of isolated old farms and picturesque villages.
Chilterns AONB Proposed
The landform and woodland areas of Blunt`s Wood and Millfield Plantation restricts the wider effects of the Scheme within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), shielding distant views.
The section of the Scheme within the AONB remains in cutting. Impacts on the character of the AONB are restricted to the additional light columns and gantries that would be visible. Whilst the section is currently lit, the proposed lighting columns and gantries give a more “urban” appearance within the AONB and is perceived as an extension of the urbanisation of the landscape around Chorleywood.
Primarily, impacts are reduced in the long term by new planting and enhancement of the existing vegetation.
The proposed hedge provides visual connectivity along the highway boundary and provides added foreground interest to views from the south. This would not provide a full screen, but it helps place the new gantries and lighting columns within the landscape.
Colne Valley Park Existing
The Colne Valley Park broadly encloses the motorway on both sides between Junctions 16 and 17.
The park is comprised of a chain of green spaces, which includes urban open spaces and unspoilt countryside and extends from the expansive wetlands and reservoirs of the Thames floodplain in the south to chalk hills on the edge of the Chilterns AONB to the north.
The Park has four key aims; to maintain and enhance the landscape, to resist urbanisation within the Colne Valley, to conserve the nature conservation resources of the Park and to provide accessible facilities and opportunities for countryside recreation.
Colne Valley Park Proposed
The Chilterns to the west and the more urban areas to the east and south contain the wider effects of the Scheme on the Colne Valley Park.
The Scheme influences the immediate landscape character, particularly through the addition of built elements and the removal of existing vegetation which increases the perception of the motorway on this area.
Watling Chase Community Forest Existing
The Watling Chase Community Forest is situated between Junctions 21 and 23 and covers an area of 188 square kilometres in Hertfordshire and north London around the towns of Potters Bar, St Albans, Bushey, Borehamwood and Barnet.
It was set up in 1991, one of 12 Community Forests and consists of a mixture of farmland, meadows, wildlife areas, hedgerows and woodland as well as public open space and urban fringe.
The key aims of the Forest are to regenerate and revitalise the green space in and around major towns and cities and to create well-wooded environments for work, wildlife, recreation and education.
Watling Chase Community Forest Proposed
The key aim of the community forest is to revitalise and regenerate the green space and this aim has been considered in developing the design and assessing the potential effects of the Scheme.
