Archived press release

Prime minister gives award to road that destroyed UK top wildlife site

29 October 2004

The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth has expressed great concern following the decision to honour a controversial road which has destroyed one of the UK's top wildlife sites with the Prime Minister's "Better Public Building Award".

The A650 Bingley Relief Road in West Yorkshire opened in December 2003 following several years of objections by environmentalists and local people.

Friends of the Earth Transport spokesperson Tony Bosworth said:

"It's unbelievable that a road which has destroyed one of Britain's top wildlife sites is now winning an award for design. Its destruction of Bingley South Bog, a recognized Site of Special Scientific Interest, goes directly against Government policy to protect SSSIs and the road itself hasn't even provided the transport solution it promised - all it has done is move congestion to elsewhere in the area, exactly what opponents of the road predicted."

Notes

• Friends of the Earth International is the largest grassroots environmental network in the world with more than one million members in 68 countries

• The Prime Minister's "Better Public Building Award" is jointly sponsored by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and the Office of Government Commerce (OCG). It is part of the British Construction Industry Awards (BCIA).

• English Nature’s description of Bingley South Bog and reasons for SSSI Notification:
  This small mire occupies a peat-filled hollow in undulating ground between the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and the River Aire, at Bingley, north of Bradford.

Despite drainage and hydroseral succession, the surviving wetland provides a transition from fen to dam neutral grassland, maintained in a species-rich condition, probably by grazing.

Open water occurs in a depression caused by the weight of an aqueduct embankment.

This central swamp is dominated by water horsetail Equisetum fluviatile, with common spike-rush Eleocharis palustris, broad-leaved pondweed Potamogeton natans, thread-leaved crowfoot Ranunculus trichophyllus and mare's-tail Hippuris vulgaris. The last two species are relatively rare in West Yorkshire.

Even rarer in the region, the marsh cinquefoil Potentilla palustris is widespread in the surrounding damp transitionary fen, extending both into the open water and into the grasslands.

The mosaic of neutral grassland and transitional fen supports large quantities of a number of sedges. These include brown sedge Carex disticha Ð regionally uncommon Ð hammer sedge C. hirta, yellow sedge C. demissa, oval sedge C. ovalis, carnation sedge C. panicea, glaucous sedge C. flacca and common sedge C. nigra, together with a broad diversity of other marshland plants.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust