Building HS2 requires temporary worksites to construct the railway’s tunnels, viaducts and other major structures. But once these assets are complete, the construction footprint does not simply remain.
Across the route, temporary construction areas are being cleared, land is being restored and habitats are being re-established. This careful restoration work allows sites to become part of the surrounding landscape once again, creating space for plants and wildlife to return.
Join us as we visit locations where construction has finished or moved on and see how former worksites are being transformed into restored landscapes.
📢 Subscribe for the latest news and updates from Britain’s high-speed railway, HS2.
00:00 – Introduction to the Colne Valley Western Slopes
00:28 – The Vision: Creating 127 hectares of natural habitat
01:11 – Habitats: Chalk grassland, woodlands, and wetlands
01:37 – Repurposing chalk from the Chiltern tunnel
02:12 – Research & Innovation: Optimizing Soil for Biodiversity
03:09 – Project Progress: Halfway through the journey
03:56 – Tree planting and community access routes
04:45 – Future viewing areas and HS2 integration
05:18 – Impact: Enhancing biodiversity and climate resilience
06:24 – A design led by ecology and landscape architecture
07:25 – Building a lasting legacy for the community
Follow us on social media:
💼 X: https://twitter.com/HS2ltd
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hs2ltd/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HS2ltd
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/high-speed-two-hs2-ltd/
#HS2 #Environment #NatureRecovery #Infrastructure
Get in touch: If you have any questions about HS2 or our ongoing works, contact our HS2 Helpdesk team:
📞 Call: 08081 434 434
📧 Email: hs2enquiries@hs2.org.uk
27 Comments
Where the bat bridge that cost £100M ? Money well spent.
Beautiful natural secluded areas that will no doubt see a ton of illegal dumping.
Must be dangerous stuff, that wildlife. Look at all the PPE you need just to stand in an otherwise empty field. Shame you've wasted so much money building only half the line
Smoke and mirrors. HS2 has not simply meant “cutting down some trees.” It has involved the permanent loss and fragmentation of complex ecosystems that took centuries to develop. HS2 has created replacement woodland and restored other habitats, but newly planted woodland cannot replicate an ancient woodland ecosystem within any meaningful human timescale. Even Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee warned that compensation should not be treated as equivalent to the loss of irreplaceable ancient woodland.
brillent video
We've had 5 heatwaves this year and clear blue skies than ever before since records began, and yet you still managed to film this footage with grey skies.
What a complete wast of money the whole project was the people involved should be made to pay for it themselves
Amazing people still don't understand how to pronounce the letter "H".
I'm wondering… If people were given a choice for "extend HS2 towards Crewe" or "leave the area around the line in a better state" (emphasising "better" v "the same")… How many people would prefer to go for the extension to Crewe?
What utter bollox. Trying to justify their damage.
Is HS2 going back to replace dead bushes and trees because it's been so dry in the UK this year?
good job
is this land protected though? whos to say they dont build something along it in a few decades?
This is all good now let’s get funding to extend it to Manchester
Love this. A lot of building projects in the past didn't put nature back. Great to see this, and I hope this carries on for housing developments as well; we have to provide for nature as well
Can you use actual footage instead of graphics
haitch s2
Go back hundreds of years and almost every big project was late and way over budget. Hopefully the line will eventually be extended north to Manchester.
Does anyone know where the accent is from with the very nice presenter?
We should be proud of HS1 and HS2 compared to European high speed railways. The reinstatement works creating woodland and other landscaping works are second to none.
Couldn't listen to her voice any longer… annoying, because I would have like to watch it.
I'm surprised they haven't built houses on all of this land lol
The concrete and rusted steel is very stark, they could’ve added dye to the concrete like iron bridge power station, it doesn’t blend in to the landscape like the Victorian railways of brick and stone.
HS2 hasn't left the landscape better than they found it. They have destroyed a watercourse at Thorpe Mandeville, gouged a huge cutting at Culworth, and still there's that enormous gap on the skyline visible from Offchurch where the Cubbington pear tree used to be
1:23
"new"?
I think that the words 'create' and 'new' needed to have started with "re-" at the very least.
Unless all 33km² were originally brownfield sites, which they obviously weren't, who do you think you are kidding with this engagingly smilingly presenter lady having to mouth such blatant manipulation of the truth‽
How many badger setts have you destroyed? I know of two, each over a hundred years old.
It’s looking good! Thanks for the overview update, it’s nice to see how things like this fit into the bigger picture.
Costs so much time and money to do this… Nature is important, but at what cost. I'd rather a basic approach and hand as much as possible back to local management as fast as possible. It's costing an absolute fortune.