Elizabeth’s new line in London will allow passengers to start running high-speed trains under the city this week, along part of a 73-mile route that stretches from Reading in the west to Schoenfield in the east. However, they will not be the first passengers to enjoy the benefits of the new line.
On the island of Wallasea in Essex, thousands of birds have already benefited from the £ 19 billion railway project – on a mosaic of lagoons, islands and bays created by 3.5 million tonnes of soil excavated during the construction of its new station and 13 nice double tunnels.
Visitors to the birds in this newly built nature reserve, managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, include pilgrims, sparrows, black-tailed owls and little herons. Chickens and marsh warblers appeared in the winter, while the maze, the boar and the snake also visited the place.
Map showing the relative locations of Crossrail via London and the island of Wallasea off the coast of Essex
As a good measure, I noticed yellow tails, oysters, larks, black-headed gulls and reed buntings during my visit last week. Brown rabbits ran through the long grass as larks screamed over the flat, continuous landscape of Essex.
It’s a nature lover’s paradise – and remarkably created from the remnants of one of the UK’s most complex, costly, crisis-affected engineering projects in recent years: Crossrail, a £ 15 billion venture at £ 19 billion and whose opening on Tuesday will take place four years later than originally planned.
“Huge amounts of soil were dug down the streets of London during the tunneling needed to build the Elizabeth Line,” said Rachel Fancy, site manager at RSPB Wallasea Island. “This material was provided to the RSPB, which allowed us to create our Jubilee Swamp, the cornerstone of our new reserve.”
The Jubilee Swamp consists of more than 160 hectares (400 acres) of muddy plains, lagoons, swamps, fish ponds and pastures where birds can hunt for food and make nests. Most importantly, these features are built in a way that best protects them from rising water levels caused by global warming. “The trick is to create long, slightly rising shores that don’t flood quickly when water levels rise,” Fancy added. “And it was the 3.5 million tons of soil we received from Crossrail that helped us do that.”
Wallasea Island is located at the confluence of the Crouch and Roach rivers near Burnham-on-Crouch and was originally a collection of salt islands that have been drained over the centuries to create a farm growing wheat, rapeseed and barley. However, most of the land lay below sea level and the fields had to be protected by a defensive sea wall. “At the beginning of the 21st century, the wall needed renovation and the farm owner wanted to sell it,” Fancy said. “We agreed on an option to buy the land.”
Wallasea is thought to be particularly important, as Essex – once a wildlife paradise – has seen more than 90% of its wild coasts disappear over the past 400 years, removing habitats for rainforests and wild birds that winter in the area. , and destroying nesting sites in the summer.
Plans for Crossrail were then prepared. Sustainability clauses were built into the line’s construction contracts, prompting managers to offer RSPB soil to help it develop a specially sculpted reserve in Wallasea. “Our partnership with RSPB has been a key part of Crossrail’s sustainability strategy,” said Mark Wilde, CEO of Crossrail. “We are really proud that Jubilee Marsh is helping to combat the threats of climate change and coastal floods.
Supporter: There are now 150 nesting pairs of the once endangered bird on the island. Photo: Kevin Elsby / Alami
Seven million tonnes of soil were eventually excavated from the depths of London during the construction of the Elizabeth Line, and about half of that was delivered by river to Wallasea Island. A total of 1,528 shipments were made and a huge conveyor belt was built on the island to transport the soil from the shore to the central depot – from which a flotilla of dump trucks transported it to the edge of the new reserve. It was carefully layered here to create a wavy landscape.
“The sea wall was then deliberately drilled at three carefully selected points,” Fancy said. “These breakthroughs had to be made – at the same time – at low tide. Then, when the tide rose later that day, the water began to overflow and form the islands and lagoons of the Jubilee Swamp. “If we had just broken the sea wall, we would have just allowed a lake to form, but the soil from Crossrail has allowed us to create a network of salt lagoons and islands. That made everything different. ”
The result is the creation of a thriving wetland, where tens of thousands of migratory birds have already settled and settled. More than 150 pairs of avocados were bred here last year, making Wallasea – in its short years of existence – one of the country’s largest colonies of these distinctive black-and-white marsh birds, a bird that has only recently become nearly extinct in the United kingdom. Other species that have arrived in large numbers include the snake, the tailed crow, the knot and the duck. “It’s getting busy there, and that’s very encouraging,” Fancy said.
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