Preservation order given to trees on bus route

Campaigners opposed to a new bus route going through part of an orchard are celebrating after some of the trees were granted a provisional tree preservation order (TPO).

The planned 8.6-mile (14km) bus route, costing about £160m, will link the growing new town of Cambourne to Cambridge, and has been devised by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP).

Part of it would cut through a 100-year-old orchard at Coton, and campaigners have now succeeded in getting a TPO from South Cambridgeshire District Council to protect 12 of the oldest Bramley apple trees, which they hope will "strengthen our case" against the planned route.

A GCP spokesperson said: "In the event that the TPO is confirmed, the impact of the GCP's proposals on these trees will be considered in due course as part of the Transport and Works Act process."

The provisional TPO was granted at a meeting this week.

Anna Gazeley, whose family runs Coton Orchard, which was established in 1922, said the proposed busway section would "cut the orchard in half and the ecosystem would just collapse".

She said the 12 trees were planted in 1922 and the TPO should protect the "jewel in the crown of the orchard - the founding trees".

Under the current plans for the proposed busway route, she said not only would the orchard's fruit trees be affected, but other trees in the hedgerows and those nearby in "unmanaged land".

She said the 12 protected trees stood in a north-south line in the orchard, and the planned route would run through the middle of them in an east-west direction.

Protecting those 12 would protect other trees both in front and behind, Ms Gazeley said.

She said if, in the future, the busway proposal was the subject of a public inquiry, having the TPO would "strengthen our case".

Achieving the TPO was "reinvigorating" to those who had been fighting the busway plans for 10 years, Ms Gazeley said.

"It would have been like a kick in the gut not to have got it, but we have finally won something," she added.

The council agenda said: "A provisional TPO would last for six months which includes a 21-day consultation period giving all parties an opportunity to submit objections, comments or representations.

"Thereafter the responses would be considered, and a final decision made to amend, confirm or not confirm the order within the six-month period."

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