How a £1.5bn ‘wildlife-boosting’ bypass became an environmental disaster | Environment

Lorries thunder over the A14 bridge north of Cambridge, above steep roadside embankments covered in plastic shrouds containing the desiccated remains of trees.

Occasionally the barren landscape is punctuated by a flash of green where a young hawthorn or a fledgling honeysuckle has emerged apparently against the odds, but their shock of life is an exception in the treeless landscape.

The new 21-mile road between Cambridge and Huntingdon cost £1.5bn and was opened in 2020 to fulfil a familiar political desire: growth. One of Britain’s biggest infrastructure projects of the past decade, it was approved by the secretary of state for transport over the heads of locally elected councillors.

National Highways, the government-owned company that builds and maintains Britain’s A roads,…