High Speed 2 Railway Line

Department for Transport written question – answered at on 26 October 2018.

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Photo of Victoria Prentis Victoria Prentis Conservative, Banbury

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government has taken to ensure that High Speed Two does not cause the death of barn owls.

Photo of Nusrat Ghani Nusrat Ghani Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport), Assistant Whip (HM Treasury)

HS2 Ltd has produced a barn owl mitigation plan to manage and reduce the anticipated significant effects to barn owls caused by construction and operation of the Phase One scheme. The plan has been developed by a team of professional ecologists, including a barn owl expert, and has been informed by additional research undertaken by the British Trust for Ornithology.

The plan assumes that 80 pairs are affected by the Phase One scheme and consists of measures to: avoid disturbance to the species during construction; reduce the collision risk of the railway to the birds; provide new artificial nesting sites at a safe distance from the railway; and monitor the new nesting sites to ensure uptake by barn owls.

It is expected that the barn owl mitigation plan will be expanded and refined for future phases of HS2.

Does this answer the above question?

Yes2 people think so

No3 people think not

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