‘Fragile’ ecology of Coton Orchard will be devastated by Cambourne to Cambridge busway, inquiry warned
Additional reporting: Hannah Brown, Local Democracy Reporter
Coton Orchard owner Anna Gazeley told a public inquiry that veteran apple trees won’t survive being uprooted and moved for the proposed C2C busway.
Challenged intensely during proceedings, Ms Gazeley pushed back and reminded the council’s lawyers she was not “a criminal defendant”.
“I produced a proof, not as an expert, but as somebody that’s trying to save Coton Orchard,” she told inspectors.
Her comments came after Matthew Henderson, representing the applicant Cambridgeshire County Council, had questioned the credibility of some of her evidence.
“You referred to a reference that does not exist. It has been made up and hallucinated by AI,” he said.
Ms Gazeley said she had used AI to help create her submission and accepted it may not be a perfect document. However, she said there were other references made and advice taken from experts about the impact of moving the trees.
“Mr Henderson, I am not a criminal defendant and you’re not a prosecutor,” she said, as questioning on this point continued.
This was met with cheers by the audience, which led inspector Richard Clegg to warn the public to “restrain themselves”.
“I know people are extremely interested in this case, but I’d be grateful you could just restrain yourselves. Mr Underwood and I need to clearly follow what is being said between the parties,” said Mr Clegg.
As the debate continued, Ms Gazeley stated: “As I said, I am not perfect. I’ve not come here as a professional witness.”
Ms Gazeley, who has lived in Coton for 30 years, said her father bought the orchard in 1996 after seeing other orchards he knew from his childhood disappear.
She stressed to inspectors at the busway inquiry on 22 October the ecological importance of the orchard, and shared fears about the impact the development would have on the “fragile” trees.
She made clear on several occasions that she was not claiming to be an expert, but was bringing “lived experience” and “an intimate knowledge of the land that would be lost” to the inquiry.
Ms Gazeley said: “After nearly £18million of central government grant spent on preparation, the route now before you is one that must avoid expanding national water infrastructure, accommodate future rail construction, and cut through four wildlife sites – only to terminate at a congested point with limited onward connectivity.”
She continued: “We are asked to accept that these conflicts can somehow be overcome, while being told by the applicant that it is impossible to provide a bus lane along the existing A1303 on this same hill, a corridor that faces none of these constraints and already carries a section of bus lane parallel to the orchard. A vague guided or ‘optical’ system is proposed here, while a proven highway measure is dismissed there.”
The C2C Busway project has been put together by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP). If it goes ahead it will see a new busway built from Cambourne to Cambridge, via the Bourn Airfield development, Hardwick, Coton, and the West Cambridge site.
A pathway alongside the busway is also proposed for pedestrians and cyclists. A travel hub is also planned at Scotland Farm.
The county council, as highways authority, submitted a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) application to the Department for Transport, to ask for permission to build the new busway on behalf of the GCP.
An inquiry into the scheme opened last month, with individuals and organisations giving evidence to two planning inspectors both in support and opposition to the project.
The project has faced backlash, particularly around plans for an off-road section of the busway into Cambridge, proposed to cut through Coton Orchard.
Ms Gazeley told the inquiry that Coton Orchard is “not a gap on a map”, but is “one of the largest remaining traditional orchards in Cambridgeshire”.
She said it had been designated a priority habitat under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan and a county wildlife site.
She also highlighted the ecology of the site and that the orchard provides habitats for various species.
She said: “This is a habitat with ecological memory, more than 100 botanical species have been recorded in its understory; mosses, liverworts, fungi, typically associated with ancient woodland are established here confirming as ecological evidence has shown that this site has matured far beyond commercial cultivation.
“Species have been identified that would ordinarily be expected only in sites such as Madingley Wood.
“Coton Orchard may not form a perfect block that meets every advisory checklist, very few surviving orchards do.
“Over 90 per cent have already been lost, what remains must be judged by its substance, not its symmetry.
“Stand within it and you will see what those checklists were written to protect – a mosaic habitat with fruit trees, dead wood, grassland, hedgerows, and soil, and a life that depends upon it.”
Ms Gazeley raised concerns about proposals to dig up and move some veteran trees to build the busway.
She said these trees are “fragile” and argued they would not survive the move.
She said: “The applicant now accepts the veteran status of those founding Bramleys, yet still asserts that no loss or deterioration would result from the scheme.
“Three they say can be retained in situ, three can be translocated elsewhere, but these trees do not exist as specimens, they are part of a single ecological unit linked underground by mycorrhizal networks through which resources and chemical signals are exchanged.
“Severing that network is not mitigation, it is disconnection and decline.”
Ms Gazeley also claimed that the example provided of the relocation of a mulberry tree at the Genome Campus did “not withstand scrutiny”. She said it was not a veteran apple tree like the Bramley trees in question at Coton Orchard.
She said: “Despite assurances that translocation will avoid harm the applicant’s own method statement makes the reality clear, I quote ‘the trees will be dragged on the floor on a pipe road to their new locations’.
“That single word ‘dragged’ tells its own story, no veteran tree hollowed by age and sustained through its roots would survive that intact.”
Ms Gazeley told the inspectors that “no compelling case” had been made that the proposed off-road busway is the only way to meet public need for transport.
She claimed there is “no exceptional justification” that would be able to override the “national policy presumption against the destruction of veteran trees and a traditional orchard”.
Mr Henderson also accused Ms Gazeley of being “misleading” in her evidence by only referring to the word “dragging” in her reference to the relocation of the trees.
They said this did not “fairly reflect” the full preferred method set out by the applicant, and said the root ball and the trunk were not proposed to be dragged.
Ms Gazeley said she did not think she had been misleading and argued that any excavation, root pruning, and moving of the fragile trees would “kill the tree”.
After the session, the Bonkers Busway group, which opposes the GCP’s busway route, said: “After a week of being pilloried by county barristers, we’re feeling a bit sensitive about the claims that Coton Orchard has no worth, no amenity and that the bonkers busway would somehow improve it. It’s not perfect and neither are we, but we care deeply and do our best without funding, relying on volunteers, goodwill and our own sweat.”
The inquiry continues.