Reaching a biodiversity milestone on the road to becoming Nature Positive

We're on course to achieve our 2020 commitment to halting the decline of biodiversity across our activities by 2025

National Highways reaches biodiversity milestone

As operator of England’s motorways and major A roads, we're becoming one of the country’s leading promoters natural habitat creation and improvement.

In the next five years, we'll move further toward being nature positive. We aim to deliver at least a 10 per cent biodiversity net gain on our work between 2025 and 2030.

We're doing this:

by building biodiversity enhancement into our major projects and maintenance activities
through innovative partnerships with conservation charities

One of the ponds we created alongside the A595 Parton to Lillyhall, Cumbria

Surveys confirmed Great Crested Newts in several of the ponds.

Our projects include:

transforming a former open cast mine next to the M6 near Wigan into new wetland, grassland and areas of woodland as part of a major motorway upgrade
a 15 year agreement to support species rich grasslands on the Greena Moor Nature Reserve in Cornwall
Enhancements for nature, including a green bridge, alongside major improvements to the A30 in Cornwall
protecting bat populations on historic railway structures across the UK

A Bee Orchid - one of the species we seeded alongside the A35 while performing drainage work.

Promoting biodiversity benefits valuable pollinators - like bees, moths and other insects.

Seven projects in the South West and North East regions are being delivered through the Meadow Makers initiative.

In partnership with conservation charity Plantlife, we're protecting and restore species rich wildflower and waxcap grasslands. This will help boost the biodiversity of over 100 hectares of existing grasslands.

We're working with neighbouring landowners to create species-rich meadows.

Greena Moor nature reserve - restoring grassland in a joint project with charity Plantlife

What is biodiversity net gain?

Biodiversity is the variety of all life on Earth. It includes all species of animals and plants as well asthe natural systems that support them.

Biodiversity net gain is a way of creating and improving natural habitats.

To deliver biodiversity net gain, a development must have a measurably positive impact on biodiversity, compared to what was there before. This is measured in biodiversity units.

We're proud to have delivered more than 4,500 biodiversity units since 2020, becoming one of the leading organisations in this area.

That’s the equivalent of:

632,000 trees
1,020 hectares of wildflower grassland
5 hectares of peat bog habitat
2.2 hectares of pond habitat

(Page header image: credit - Tim Haskell)