The 12 trees blocking a £160m bus route

Yahoo

07-02-2025

In a green pocket of Cambridgeshire hemmed by the M11, 12 century-old apple trees are entrenched in a stand-off with two yellow flags.
The 'veteran' Bramleys stand aloof like sentries on squat, gnarly trunks. They are the elder kingpins among some 2,000 fruit trees, bare branches rigid against piercing February gusts. But the gaudy flags flap wildly at their feet like yapping pups, refusing to be ignored.
They demark the width of a busway, complete with cycleway, which – if approved – will tear through the centre of this 60-acre orchard, carrying commuters from the rapidly growing new town of Cambourne seven miles away, into the science and technology hub of Cambridge four miles from here.
The estimated £160 million, 8.6 mile Cambourne to Cambridge (C2C) busway, first proposed in 2014 as part of the £500 million government-backed Greater Cambridge City Deal, has an admirable aim. To cut congestion, provide green transport, and speed the growth of this area which is rich in bio-medical research and tech innovation – the Oxford-Cambridge corridor Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last week she wants to transform into 'Europe's Silicon Valley'. It's a keystone within her drive for Britain's elusive growth.
Yet the busway would obliterate six of the veteran trees, planted in 1922, including one which is the second biggest Bramley ever recorded in Britain. Some 500 more trees would be uprooted with them – although protesters insist it would truly be around 1,000 – and 'tonnes' of carbon stored in this long undisturbed, ecologically rich soil, would be released.
Naturally, there is opposition. Last month, protesters succeeded in winning provisional Tree Protection Orders (TPOs) for these 12 veterans, which they hope could help thwart this busway route if there is a public inquiry.
And so these stoic Bramleys have now become guardians, joining the ranks of Rachel Reeves' other well-publicised ecological nemeses: the 'bats and newts' that she claims have frustrated previous infrastructure projects, most infamously the £100 million HS2 'bat tunnel'.
Coton Orchard is a microcosm of Britain's green-versus-growth conundrum. And of course, there are also bats here, too. Eight species, in fact.
'See that tall row of poplar trees?' says Anna Gazeley, 55, whose father, a watchmaker, bought Coton Orchard in 1996. 'The bats launch there and skim east to west at dusk, scraping the insects from the tops of the trees. In daylight, house martins skim north-south and as the sun sets there's aerial ballet as they weave between each other.
'Drive a bus lane through it, you won't have food for them, you won't have the insects and the habitat the insects need. If you keep forcing wildlife into ever-decreasing fragments, it will collapse.'
Gazeley won't sell her orchard, so it would need to be compulsorily purchased. Her argument, echoed by the Coton Busway Action Group and Cambridge Past, Present & Future, which owns surrounding land, is powerful.
This is an oasis, even in February. We arrive, and a Muntjac deer darts into view on cue. Gazeley points excitedly to blackened fungus on branches, the gnawed hollows that blue tits nest in. 'We have 256 species of terrestrial invertebrates, 15 of conservation concern; 28 birds on the red and amber list – 60-odd species overall,' she lists, urgently.
Just last year, a 'nationally rare' dark crimson underwing moth was discovered here. It is a designated priority habitat under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.
Ninety per cent of orchards have been lost since the 1950s. Those remaining are special, say ecologists.
Steve Oram, a biodiversity officer at the People's Trust For Endangered Species, explains that the freestanding fruit trees provide 'dead wood habitat' which is 'rare', supplying a home for saproxylic invertebrates like click and noble chafer beetles.
'The only other place you get it is wood pasture and parkland habitat,' he explains. 'To lose this would be tragic.'
There's also its history. Peter Rayner's father once managed the orchard. Now in his 90s, Rayner recollects his boyhood picking fruit; wartime memories of Jewish refugees camping here.
'If a concrete busway is driven through the middle of the orchard it will not just destroy 500 trees and wild habitat, it will make that orchard impossible to manage and kill one of Cambridge's heritages,' he said.
Yet there is no doubt this area needs more and greener transport links. The Greater Cambridge City Deal aims to build 33,000 new homes by 2031, and create 44,000 jobs. West Cambourne is currently seeing 2,600 homes built, explains town councillor Stephen Drew.
The proposed East West Rail linking Oxford and Cambridge, another hefty infrastructure project, will bring yet more homes. Nearby housing development Bourn Airfield is set for 3,500. Traffic is predicted to increase 20%.
'At the moment we are overwhelmingly dependent on the car. The roads at commuter times are quite heavily congested,' says Drew.
In the centre of this 25-year-old town with its pastiche townhouses, buses seem frequent, but residents report crowding. Chris Howe, 68, chats outside the Fish'n'Chick'n takeaway. He's retired but currently goes to Cambridge for cancer treatment. 'I get the bus about 4.30pm out of Cambridge and can't get a seat,' he explains.
He has family who work at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca who have their global headquarters in Cambridge and clearly thinks improved public transport is a good thing. 'What Rachel Reeves said is a good thing, growth is a good thing,' he adds. 'I think it probably does have to give,' he says of threatened green space. 'Can't the trees be replanted?'
Lorraine Brown, 53, desperately needs a bus from her home in West Cambourne, a 20-minute walk away. She had an administrative job at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and is currently job hunting with no car.
'I don't want to lose lovely landscapes,' she admits. 'Where possible we want the best of both worlds, but we do need a busway.'
The Coton campaigners agree. They just propose it be built elsewhere – specifically using the existing infrastructure of the A1303, the Madingley Road.
Cambridge Past, Present & Future has drawn up plans, and believe only a one-way, inbound busway is required from Cambourne to Cambridge – where they claim congestion, improved post-Covid, is worst – and a cycleway could be created elsewhere, so the A road could be extended.
'We aren't just saying 'don't do it here', we are saying 'don't do it here because it makes more sense to do it this way',' says Gazeley.
But there's more complication. The A1303 runs alongside the privately owned Madingley Woods, an ancient woodland and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) tasked with delivering the local plan insists a busway there would threaten the wood.
A case of trees versus trees, then? The Coton campaigners argue their slimmer plan doesn't pose a risk, claiming the GCP hasn't formally considered it. The GCP stresses 'comprehensive' consideration has taken place.
As traffic whistles past, the GCP's interim director, Peter Blake, stares at the fence boundary and the approximate 8-10 metre 'buffer zone' of scrub between the wood and the roadside. He reiterates the 'current preferred option' would not work here.
'The trees in front of the fence provide a screen between the SSSI and the road so their loss would be undesirable,' he says. 'Any construction at this location would potentially impact on the root system of trees – understandably this would be something we would want to avoid.'
He won't be drawn on the B word. 'We're not getting into a bat conversation,' he says. Nor the orchard. But he stresses that the GCP has 'a commitment of 10 per cent biodiversity net gain with a target of 20 per cent across our programme' – i.e. putting back nature, including replanting an estimated 1,500 trees.
In March 2023, Cambridgeshire County Council voted in favour of an application for a Transport and Works Act Order for the busway. Last November this was submitted to the Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander. This month she is expected to say if she is calling a public inquiry. The Coton campaigners are hopeful – although they know that their TPOs could be 'steamrollered' anyway.
Perched high on their rolling arable farmland, Rob Sadler, 51, and his father John, 78, look down on it all. The fifth-generation farmers also face compulsory purchase. Their land would be cut in half by the busway, making it more difficult to farm.
They sit on John's parents' memorial bench, where their ashes are buried. They say the busway would plough through it. 'It's very upsetting,' says John.
Rob, a surveyor, explains the family is for growth. They've converted pig sheds into offices for tech start-ups. 'If science was a country, Cambridge would be the capital,' he says, proudly.
He fully supports a busway, but here? 'It's absolute nonsense,' he says.
In the orchard Anna pauses by a four-year-old sapling – grafted from what is thought to be the original Bramley. It's a long life away from providing a decades-rich habitat.
'How long before the bats feed here?' she shrugs.
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