Campaigners continue to overstate HS2's impact on woodland and overlook HS2’s benefits. Similar projects, motorways or new airports, can't match HS2 in minimising impact nor shifting people from cars and off planes to tackle climate change. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/loss-of-ancient-forest-to-hs2-inflated-h2rbnrxn9

England has 52,000 ancient woodland sites. Just 43 are affected by HS2 Phase One, of which over 80% will remain intact. The equivalent of 80 football pitches will make way for the railway, but we are planting 7 million trees and shrubs - equivalent to 4,600 football pitches.

Once complete HS2 will provide a huge increase in commuter services on existing lines, supercharge investment & jobs to the Midlands and North and make high speed connections to 25 cities and towns in the UK including #Birmingham, #Manchester, #Leeds, #Glasgow and #Edinburgh.

HS2 already supports 13,000 jobs – with 22,000 recently announced and many more to come before the first train even runs. Once complete regional plans predict it will support 500,000 jobs, while moving millions from cars and domestic flights on to low carbon rail.

After a week of extraordinary misinformation and exaggeration by certain groups and outlets, HS2 continues to make huge progress supporting jobs, creating opportunities for UK business, & adding to the 430,000 trees planted so far - which after a tough start are now thriving.

Finally, unreported this week, Courts rejected another Judicial Review request that lacked evidence: “Insofar as the challenge is based on environmental issues, it appears to be an attempt to re-run the matters considered and rejected in the Packham challenge.”