Highways Agency

• 1. introduction
• 2. scheme proposals
• 3. engineering assessment
• 4. environmental assessment
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 4. environmental assessment (continued)
• 5. traffic and economic assessment

4. environmental assessment (continued)

4. Environmental Assessment (continued)

4.4 Land Use

4.4.1 Introduction

This chapter considers the characteristics of land affected by the options in terms of its quality and current use.

The impacts of the options are assessed for agricultural and other land uses, including local mineral workings, landfill sites, development land and existing residential dwellings are also assessed.

4.4.2 Non Agricultural Land Use

EXISTING CONDITIONS

Allocated Development Land

The majority of the study area comprises of Grade 2 and 3a agricultural land. The study area extends from Ellington, to the west of Huntingdon to Fen Drayton Interchange. A number of smaller settlements line the route corridor. These include in an east to west direction, Conington, Fenstanton, Hemingford Grey, Hilton, Godmanchester, Offord Cluny, Buckden and Brampton.

There are a number of significant developments located within the route corridor including the following:

• Buckden landfill site, located between Buckden and Brampton,the northern part of which is currently active;
• Wood Green Animal Shelter;
• Beaconsfield Equestrian Centre;
• Brampton Park Golf Course;
• Hemingford Abbots Golf Complex;
• There are a wide range of privately owned agricultural enterprises located throughout the study area.

Planning Applications

This Addendum uses information on planning applications/permissions obtained in January 2004 for locations adjacent to the road.

The following list outlines the principal on-going planning applications and development proposals made within the study area, as of January 2004:

• A substantial area of land has been zoned for a new settlement of up to 10,000 houses at Longstanton/ Oakington which will generate significant traffic on the A14.
• Permission has been granted for extraction of sand and gravel at Buckden Quarry, Huntingdon. It is expected that this site will be worked on over the next few years.
• Planning permission was granted for the construction of 3 office buildings at Eden Park, West End Road, West End Farm, south west of Fenstanton.
• Planning permission for a grain store at Topfield Farm, Cambridge Road, Hemingford Grey was granted in May 2003.
• Planning permission was granted in 2003 for the construction of an indoor golf centre and extensions to clubhouse at Hemingford Driving range, Cambridge Road, Hemingford Abbots.
• Planning permission was granted in 2003 for additional cattery buildings, kennels, reception areas, restaurant and a function hall at Wood Green Animal shelter, London Road, Godmanchester.
• Planning permission was granted for a golf driving range building at Station Farm, Buckden Road, Brampton in October 2001.

Mineral and Waste Sites

Buckden North landfill site is the only active landfill site located within the study area. Buckden South landfill site, Hemingford Grey landfill site and Conington landfill site are all full.

An application for planning permission for mineral extraction by Lafarge Aggregates (H/5004/02/CM) has been submitted for a site east of Buckden. This application was recently granted consent.

A full review of the policies and objectives of the Cambridgeshire County Council Minerals Local Plan is included in 'Plans and Policies'.

Existing Dwellings

The Alternative Proposal traverses agricultural land. There are a number of farming enterprises and village settlements located within the vicinity of the route corridor. There are also a number of dwellings located in close proximity to the route option, particularly to the south of Brampton and in the vicinity of Fenstanton.

Huntingdon Viaduct

Land adjacent to the viaduct currently comprises land associated with the A14 and B1514 roads, Huntingdonshire railway station (including parking and access), and areas of open space and scrubland. Views Common is situated towards the north-west; Mill Common is located towards the south-east.

Based on discussions with Planning Officers at Huntingdonshire District Council, it is understood that there are no outstanding planning permissions or applications within the immediate vicinity of the viaduct. Similarly, according to the most updated version of the Local Plan, there is no land adjacent to the viaduct allocated for development purposes.

POTENTIAL IMPACTS

The Alternative Proposal would traverse a site on which a planning application for mineral extraction has been approved.

The route traverses open countryside, creating a barrier between village settlements located to the north and south. However, this barrier would not be any greater to that which is already created by the existing A14. Mitigation measures in the form of over/ under-bridges would allow unrestricted movement between these settlements, thus minimising the degree of severance.

In relation to the viaduct, land take and road closures associated with the construction phase would conflict with adjacent land uses in the short term.

COMPARISON WITH CHUMMS STRATEGY

The differences in impacts between the CHUMMS Strategy and the Alternative Proposal would be negligible in land use terms. A reduced area of land take associated with the Alternative Proposal could slightly reduce conflict with the area of land subject to the minerals extraction (east of Buckden).

The construction phase (Alternative Proposal) associated with the viaduct replacement would cause disruption to adjacent land uses in the short term. The CHUMMS Strategy would encroach into Mill Common (protected open space) in the longer term, during both the construction and operational phases.

The construction phase associated with the viaduct replacement (Alternative Proposal) would cause disruption to adjacent land uses in the short term. The CHUMMS Strategy would encroach into Mill Common in the longer term, during both the construction and operational phases.

4.4.3 Agricultural Land Use

INTRODUCTION

Most of the land affected by the A14 improvement is agricultural. Accordingly, an assessment has been made here of the potential impact on agricultural resources and existing farm businesses.

This Stage 2 assessment considers the characteristics of agricultural land affected by the off-line sections of the Alternative Proposal in terms of its quality and current use. The likely impacts on affected holdings are assessed and recommendations made concerning mitigation measures. Impacts are assessed with and without recommended mitigation measures being implemented and the assumption is that, in broad terms, the agricultural circumstances prevailing at the time of survey will continue to prevail. However, it should be noted that the recent Mid-term Review of the Common Agricultural Policy, with its far reaching reforms of agricultural support systems, may have dramatic but, as yet, largely unpredictable effects on the rural economy.

In the final section, the off-line Alternative Proposal is compared with the CHUMMS Strategy.

No detailed analysis is presented here of the agricultural impacts of the scheme along the existing A14 between Fen Drayton and the Spittals Interchange. This is because there is no agricultural land take and the only impact will be the closure of farm and field accesses off the A14 and their replacement with accommodation tracks from the junctions. These new access arrangements will be safer than the present arrangements and so the impact of the scheme in this section will be neutral or slightly beneficial.

Reconstruction of the Huntingdon Viaduct will have no impact on the adjacent grazing meadows of Mill Common and Views Common.

METHOD

Legislative Requirements

The 1999 "Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations" state that an EIA, including an agricultural assessment, where appropriate, is required for projects of this nature.

This agricultural assessment has involved the study of client-supplied data and original survey work. It should be noted that TAG, with its use of Assessment Summary Tables, has not been adapted to agricultural studies and so this report follows the DMRB Volume 11 Guidelines for a Stage 2 Environmental Assessment.

The four main areas covered in any assessment of the effects of a new road on agricultural land are specified as:

• Land take in relation to quality and quantity of agricultural land lost
• Type of husbandry
• Severance
• Major accommodation works

National Policy

Planning policy regarding agricultural land in England is set out in PPS7 (The Countryside: Environmental Quality and Economic and Social Development), concerning sustainable development in rural areas. This states that, where possible, development should not take place on land in Grades 1 - 3a (best and most versatile), according to MAFF's 1988 Revised Guidelines for Agricultural Land Classification of England and Wales. It also requires assessments to take into account the impact of a proposed development on farm size and structure and any buildings and fixed equipment.

SURVEY AND DATA COLLECTION

Prior to conducting field surveys, published and unpublished data and route plans were consulted. The route corridor was examined in the field between October 2003 and January 2004. Surveys comprised:

• Assessment of soils.
• Interviews.
• Route examination: either during or after interviews, the route was examined in order to verify details discussed at the interview, and to examine land use and condition. Agri-Environmental grant schemes.

METHOD OF ASSESSMENT

The methods of assessing the relative degree of impact are described in greater detail at the relevant part of the text. However, the general methodology can be summarised as follows:

• Land Take: this is assessed in terms of quantity and quality, and the losses evaluated against national and local criteria.
• Farming practice: the methods of working of individual farms are described, and the impact of the proposals assessed.
• Access: the effect on access both into and out of farms and internally within units is described.
• Economic impacts: the effect of the proposed routes are described and assessed in terms of broad economic impact. Comparative assessments have been made to evaluate the order of magnitude of the impact. These are for comparative assessment purposes only, using standardised data, and do not necessarily reflect accurately the potential financial losses on each farm. It should be noted that the purpose of this assessment is to indicate the severity of impact and not to evaluate levels of compensation payable.
• Other effects: these include drainage, prospects for farm-based diversification, sporting and other interests or effects as identified during this assessment.

BASELINE SITUATION

Existing conditions immediately prior to the proposed development (the baseline situation) can be divided into two categories:

• Inherent conditions not influenced by man to a significant degree; and
• Land use conditions reflecting man's use of natural resources. These are generally of a more short-term nature.

Inherent Conditions

The inherent conditions include the geology, the relief or topography of the area, the climate and the character and quality of the soils.

The basic geology of the area has been described in Part I of the SAR. The EAR chapter on agriculture described the geology of the route corridor, relevant to the understanding of soils and Agricultural Land Classification.

The land falls away northward and eastward to the Ouse and Cam valleys. East of Hilton the landscape of the route corridor is below 20 m O.D. and nearly level, consisting of Oxford Clay, terrace deposits and alluvium. This flat landscape merges almost imperceptibly with the flat fens north of the route corridor.

The climate is one of the driest in Britain with only 560 mm of rainfall annually on the high ground and around 520 mm on the low ground.

Soils

The Soil Map of Eastern England with its accompanying book is a generalised soil map that lacks field by field detail. However, it does provide a useful introduction to the broad pattern of soils, indicating areas of lighter, better quality land in what is a landscape of predominantly heavy soils in Jurassic Clay and Chalky Till. Other map sources provided greater detail in localised areas.

Soil surveys were carried out as part of this assessment along the line of the route options in areas where the level of published information is insufficient for the purposes of Agricultural Land Classification. Government policy, as set out in PPG7, is designed to protect the best and most versatile land, normally Grades 1, 2 and 3a. The published MAFF 1:250,000 Agricultural Land Classification Map of Eastern England provides only a broad indication of land quality and should not be used definitively on specific sites smaller than 80 ha in size. Moreover, the published Defra map does not subdivide Grade 3 into 3a and 3b and so cannot be used definitively in areas that are marginal to best and most versatile. The study area is shown as an area of Grade 2 and 3 land of good to moderate quality and there is no published information available that subdivides the Grade 3 land of the district into 3a and 3b, according to the 1988 MAFF Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) of England and Wales: Revised Guidelines and Criteria for Grading the Quality of Agricultural Land.

The DMRB recommends that where more than 20 ha of best and most versatile land in Grades 1 - 3a are likely to be lost to agricultural production, Defra should be consulted as to whether a more detailed survey is needed. Such a survey, encompassing soils, climate and topography, would be carried out according to MAFF's 1988 Revised Guidelines for the Grading the Quality of Agricultural Land, which also provides the criteria for sub-dividing Grade 3 into 3a and 3b. Recent reorganisation of government responsibilities for rural development means that the consultee is now the Rural Affairs Team of the Regional Government Offices, rather than Defra.

For this assessment, detailed surveys were carried out in areas where the level of detail in the published information is not adequate to make an informed judgement of whether the land is likely to be Grade 3a or better. These were restricted to offline sections of the route options. In the on-line sections, the relatively small amount of land take and greater importance of engineering considerations mean that land quality is not a significant issue in road design. Also, it is very difficult to assess the ALC of land alongside a trunk road because of the presence of ditches, hedges, farm tracks and buried infrastructure.

Hanslope soils, being in Wetness Class II - Ill and having calcareous topsoils, are in Grades 2 or 3a and so additional surveys were considered unnecessary for this assessment. The Hanslope association may include poorer quality, decalcificied soils but typically these occur on the level sites on the main boulder clay plateau, well beyond the southern boundary of the route corridor.

Sutton and Efford soils can be short of moisture in summer, but existing 1:25,000 scale mapping of OS Sheet TL26 (Papworth Everard) showed that most of this land is in Grade 3a. Farmers are able to compensate for the moisture shortage by growing early maturing varieties of cereals and also benefit from the ability to grow spring sown crops in a district in which winter cropping predominates. Up until the 1970s these soils around Fenstanton and Brampton were noted for fruit production and market gardening.

Fladbury soils on floodplains are in Grade 3b and 4 because of wetness and the frequency of flooding.

The focus of soil surveys for this assessment was the area of land containing Evesham soils. Here, the soils have the potential to be Grade 2, 3a or 3b depending upon the clay and calcium carbonate content of the topsoil and the Wetness Class (as indicated by depths to gleying and a slowly permeable horizon). Soils were examined at 100 m intervals along the route lines, with a hand auger.

Soils were allocated to Grade 2, 3a and 3b, according to the profile characteristics identified in the following table. In terms of climatic data relevant to the classification, all the study area has fewer than 126 field capacity days (when the soil profile is replete with moisture).

LAND USE CONDITIONS

Land Use

This is a predominantly arable area characterised by mainly large farms. Nearly half of these farms are tenanted and owned by large institutions, including Cambridge University colleges. Many agricultural holdings are uninhabited outliers of larger farms, some of which are outside the study area. The main crops are those associated with heavy land rotations, typically winter wheat with beans and oil seed rape. Even on patches of lighter soils the rotations do not change significantly. There is a small amount of grassland, with a beef herds at Conington and Brampton and some pony paddocks, particularly around the towns and villages. There are several orchards and a soft fruit grower at Fenstanton. No irrigation was recorded, except at Fenstanton.

Many of the farms have shoots and so game covers are an important landscape feature. However, no commercial shoots are directly affected by the route options.

Land Values

All that can be said at this point in time, and this is largely conjectural, is that a block of arable land would be expected to sell for between £7,500 and £10,000 per hectare. However, a block of land suitable for pony paddocks, close to Huntingdon or the larger villages could go for a far higher sum.

Agricultural Holdings Affected

A total of 29 agricultural holdings are affected by the Alternative Proposal. The boundaries of the holdings are shown in Figure 9.6, EAR Volume.

Twelve of these holdings are tenanted and often form part of a larger farming enterprise. Others are farmed under contract by neighbours or contract farming companies and this is an increasing trend as farmers dispose of labour and machinery to reduce costs.

Arable farm sizes are typically in the range of 100 ha to 500 ha. Holdings smaller than 50 ha, or so, are generally classed as part time enterprises in that the owner relies on additional sources of income, such as contracting.

POTENTIAL IMPACTS - PERMANENT AND LONG TERM

This section describes the impacts of the A14 improvement that could be long term or permanent unless mitigation measures are designed into the scheme. Likely short term construction impacts are summarised in a later section.

Impacts that are irreversible and permanent are:

• Loss of agricultural land to road construction and associated works such as balancing ponds and landscaping.
• Some impacts that are long term may, in time, become less significant as patterns of farm ownership and management change. These include:
  • Severance and loss of access
  • Disruption to drainage
  • Cumulative impacts resulting from reductions in farm size and/or manageability and/or income as a result of land take, severance or loss of buildings

Cumulative Impacts on Farm Viability

For each route option the impact on affected holdings has been assessed to determine the cumulative effects of land loss, severance and disruption to management.

All impacts apart from land take can, in theory, be mitigated. However, some severed parcels of land are too small to justify the cost of providing alternative access. Overall impacts on the agricultural enterprise are assessed both with and with out the proposed mitigation, so in most cases the main long term impact is that resulting from loss of land and disruption due to the division of the farm by the road scheme.

All agricultural impacts of this scheme are adverse and are graded on a scale from slight to major, as shown in the following table.

POTENTIAL IMPACTS - CONSTRUCTION PHASE

This section summarises the potential impacts at the construction phase. They are not covered in detail here as they will be the subject of investigation in Stage 3. The construction phase covers the period of the initial erection of fencing and defining the way leave area, through to completion of all post-construction boundary repairs, replanting and landscaping works.

Some of the impacts which occur during the construction stage, will become long-term ones. These include severance, water provision and drainage. The main construction phase impacts are:

• Disturbance to soils and land for reinstatement
• Construction severance
• Loss of buildings
• Damage to crops
• Disturbance to livestock
• Disease transmission
• Field drainage and water supply
• Disruption to field sports
• Working camps, dumps etc

ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL - PERMANENT AND LONG TERM IMPACTS

The permanent and long term impacts of the off-line sections of the Alternative Proposal on the farms through which they pass have been assessed and detailed schedules summarising the impacts are included within the EAR. The information covers:

• Land take in hectares and as a percentage of the farm's area;
• Loss of land in Grades 2 and 3a;
• Main impacts and proposed mitigation; and
• The scale of impacts before and after mitigation.

The impacts of the off-line sections of the Alternative Proposal are summarised below. This shows that nearly three quarters of the 178ha of land take is best and most versatile land in Grades 2 and 3a. Of the 29 affected working farms, 17 (59%) have cumulative impacts that are minor or slight while only three (10%) would suffer a major impact.

COMPARISON WITH CHUMMS STRATEGY

A comparison of the Alternative Proposal with the CHUMMS Proposal is presented in table below. This shows that the total agricultural land take is reduced by 9ha (4.8%) under the former and the loss of best and most versatile land in Grades 2 and 3a is reduced by 6ha. The number of affected farms is the same, as is the relative distribution of cumulative farm impacts after mitigation. In terms of agriculture, therefore, the Alternative Proposal has a slightly lesser impact than the CHUMMS strategy, by reducing the total loss of farmland.

SUMMARY OF AGRICULTURAL IMPACTS

This assessment has considered the long-term and permanent impacts of the Alternative Proposal on agricultural properties. The assessment was carried out in accordance with DMRB, using evaluation criteria that allow a comparative analysis of impacts. A number of impacts are long-term and can be mitigated as follows, by:

• Minimising the effects of severance by providing alternative accesses as specified;
• Minimising the land take for landscaping, particularly on Grade 2 and 3a land;
• Monitoring off-site field drainage and making good, as necessary; and
• Restoring water for livestock and irrigation, where supplies are severed.

A total of 29 working farms would be affected by the Alternative Proposal and the land take would be 178 ha of which 132ha are in the best and most versatile category (Grades 2 and 3a). After mitigation only three farms would suffer major impacts, due to land loss, and 17 would suffer only slight or minor impacts.

By comparison, the CHUMMS Strategy would take 187ha of which 138ha are in the best and most versatile category. The number of affected farms is the same, as is the number of farms suffering a major impact.

For the Alternative Proposal along the existing A14 between Fen Drayton and the Spittals Interchange there would be no loss of agricultural land. Existing farm and field accesses off the A14 would be replaced by a much safer arrangement of accommodation tracks from junctions and so the impact of the scheme is likely to be beneficial.