As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Saturday 14 September 2013

Crossrail moves earth for RSPB reserve


Posted on: 11 Sep 2013

One million tonnes of earth have now been removed from the new tunnels of London's Crossrail transport scheme, and are being used to build habitat at the new Wallasea Island RSPB reserve in Essex.

The 55 million-year-old earth has left Crossrail’s tunnel entrance at Westbourne Park in west London, having been removed during the construction of Crossrail’s western tunnels between Royal Oak and Farringdon by two giant 1,000-tonne tunnel-boring machines.

Over the past 15 months, more than 860 train loads of excavated material have been transported to Northfleet in Kent by GB Railfreight. The material has then been transferred to ship and transported to the new nature reserve.The earth will be used to create a new wetland on Wallasea Island. A total of 4.5 million tonnes of excavated material from Crossrail’s new tunnels and stations will eventually be used to create Britain's most ambitious manmade coastal nature project. The RSPB will require about 10 million tonnes in total of excavated material to create the new 1,500-acre reserve, which will be the largest new wetland nature reserve in Europe for some 50 years.

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