Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the environmental impact of improvement works to the A34 (a) overall and (b) in Oxfordshire.

Highways England has a duty to help protect and improve the environment and to develop and implement solutions to environmental challenges.

Through the operation, maintenance and improvement of its roads, Highways England’s aspiration is: ‘a Strategic Road Network working more harmoniously with its surroundings to deliver an improved environment.’

Highways England has carried out an assessment of the environmental impact of the proposed A34 improvement schemes. This has looked at impacts on vegetation, heritage, biodiversity, water and townscape for each proposal.