Coton Orchard owner gives evidence at busway inquiry
She stressed to inspectors the ecological importance of the orchard, and shared fears about the impact the development would have
The owner of Coton Orchard has said veteran apple trees will not survive being dug up and moved to make way for the proposed Cambourne to Cambridge (C2C) Busway.
Anna Gazeley said her father bought the orchard in 1996 after he had seen other orchards he knew from his childhood disappear.
She stressed to inspectors at the busway inquiry on Wednesday (October 22) the ecological importance of the orchard, and shared fears about the impact the development would have on the “fragile” trees.
A legal representative of Cambridgeshire County Council questioned the credibility of some of Ms Gazeley’s evidence, highlighting a reference in her submission they said had been “hallucinated by AI”.
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 submitted a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) application to the Department for Transport, to ask for permission to build the new busway.
The GCP is not able to submit a TWAO itself, so the county council as the highways authority made the formal application.
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”.
One of the legal representatives of the county council challenged Ms Gazeley on her evidence and questioned its credibility.
They highlighted an example in her written submission of a reference she made to an article about the impact of moving trees, which they said did not actually exist.
They said: “You referred to a reference that does not exist. It has been made up and hallucinated by AI.”
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.
She said: “Those trees, they are hollow, they are fragile, the features that make them veteran trees is what makes them structurally very poor.
“The thought that you can sever the roots, pull them up, drag them the length of the orchard to put them in a hole and expect them to survive with no deterioration defies credibility.”
The representative 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”.
The inquiry continues.