Biodiversity
We're committed to protecting the natural environment that surrounds our roads
Our aim is that there should be no net loss of biodiversity through our activities.
We know that roads can compromise the quality of the environment. For wildlife, roads can fragment important habitats, and put pressure on plant and animal populations, particularly where they're already under stress from other factors such as changes in land use and climate change.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can manage our network to provide areas of habitat, relatively free from human access, that may be scarce in the surrounding landscape.
We can also use road verges to connect fragmented habitats in the wider landscape, enabling plant and animal populations to move and interact, and so become stronger and more resilient.
We can also design new roads to minimise their severance effect, for example using underpasses or green bridges to link habitats under and over our road network.
To be really effective, we need to take a local approach, working with partners to recognise what is special and distinctive about the habitats, plants and animals in a given location, and then putting in place measures to best support their health and growth.
