More on the Environmental Impact:
This page was updated in January 2021
Productive Farmland to Urban Sprawl?
Building an expressway and new towns and even cities between Oxford and Cambridge will permanently take out of production the agricultural land used for the expressway project.
In the UK, farming is a £5.7 billion a year industry. The regions in the East and South East (within which the expressway would run) occupy only 27% of the total farmed area of England but produce 47% of the total crops of the country (27% of total livestock output), and generate 44% of the total income from farming. The average ‘land take’ around expressway junctions could rise to as much as 43% if all aspirational expressway houses are built.
What’s ‘land take’? It is the currently non-developed land which is taken to be used for urban development in the form of houses and their infrastructure.
The expressway will affect communities in general and farming in particular if it cuts through them and their connections with each other. Settlements along or near the expressway will take more land out of the agricultural production cycle.
Land take of the Expressway proposals
Using information from Highways England’s Corridor Assessment Report (2018) we estimate that the average urban land-take around expressway junctions will increase from the present average of 14% to between 33% and 43% (depending on the density of houses). This is the land take for just the houses near expressway junctions. Many other houses will need to be added to achieve the ‘aspirational one million’ house target and the expressway itself will take more land, too. Smart Growth’s ‘The Overheated Arc – Part 1’ estimates a total land take of well over 200km2, mostly of greenfield sites, for one million expressway houses (the same document gives CPRE’s estimate of approximately 270km2).
Agricultural quality of land across the Arc
The agricultural quality of land through which expressway Corridor B runs is very variable, and ranges from mostly Good to Moderate around Oxford City (with some Poor), an equal mixture of Good to Moderate and Poor from Bicester to Bedford, and Very Good, with some Excellent, from Bedford to Cambridge (see also, appendices here). The quality of land for wildlife, however, isn’t the same as that for agriculture. Some communities thrive on un-productive soils (e.g. in upland areas), or, for example, waterlogged soils which are entirely unsuitable for agriculture.
The irreversibility of urban land take
Many things we do to our environment are reversible. If we chop down trees we can grow more, although this takes time; if we pollute a stream we can make sure (through greater care or legislation) it doesn’t happen again. But once we have built something, it is very difficult to un-build it. We can think of no examples where either a major road or settlement has been ‘un-built’. Once land is developed it’s gone from our agricultural production systems for good; it’s gone from our countryside and from places of natural beauty, and of special scientific interest. It can no longer contribute to ecosystem services, to our life support systems.