Throughout the project, general design principles have been applied while proposing the landscape. Within visibility splays, the landscape design ensures that there will be no obstructions. Predominantly, in vegetated areas, an amenity grass seed mix has been specified due to its suitability for roadside verges. This mix will be tolerant of road salts and aid with the prevention of soil erosion as it establishes quickly and helps to bind soils. It will also tolerate the high frequency cutting regime that will be required within the visibility splays.
To provide sustainable management of surface water, the highway design incorporates swales, alongside the carriageway.
Where tree planting is proposed along the edge of the carriageway, this has been offset by a minimum of 5m for standard tree sizes and 7.5m for semimature tree planting.
Furthermore, mitigation to reduce the landscape impacts includes:
- approximately 16km of species rich hedgerow planting and 1km of translocated hedgerows
- native coniferous and broadleaf tree and woodland planting resulting in approximately five more trees
- grading out slopes where possible to a shallower gradient to allow them to be returned to agricultural use and integrate better into the natural landscape