Giving wildlife a crossroads

With animal populations in decline, solutions such as Green Bridges have been pushed to the fore to protect the natural environment and wildlife in areas affected by infrastructure development.

Green Bridges are essentially a wildlife crossing over a highway, allowing animals to cross overhead without having to venture onto the road or track itself. These bridges are usually planted with vegetation to encourage animals to cross, with the structure itself then becoming part of the natural habitat. Infracore composite bridges, designed by Fibercore Europe and supplied throughout the UK by ECS Engineering Services offer the perfect solution to creating these structures, offering a low maintenance and reduced cost solution.

In July 2015, Natural England, the government’s conservation agency, released a report on the impact of green bridges entitled ‘Green Bridges – A literature review’. The report summarised the positive benefits of green bridges across the world, from preventing the genetic isolation of brown bears in Canada to allowing rare amphibians such as newts to cross motorways in Holland. The report followed on from recommendations outlined in the 2010 government report ‘Making space for nature’ by Professor Sir John Lawton, which highlighted the need to include ‘provisions of connections across the UK landscape to ensure wildlife can function’.

Green Bridges – A literature review states that Green Bridges aid ‘pollination, trees and standing vegetation, water cycling, species diversity, recreation and tourism’. Furthermore, the structures were found to be utilised by ‘all representatives of fauna, from insects to large carnivores’. In some areas Green Bridges had decreased the number of wildlife related accidents on the road by 70%.

Green Bridges, also known commonly as Ecoducts, have been a feature of highways in mainland Europe for a number of years, with Holland particularly championing the structures as part of any new infrastructure project. Fibercore Europe has long been involved with such structures in the Dutch civil market, utilising ground-breaking Infracore Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP) to achieve durable and low maintenance solutions. With interest in green bridges growing in the UK, Nottinghamshire engineering experts ECS Engineering Services is now offering innovative Infracore bridges to the domestic market for use in such applications.

As framework contractors for the Environment Agency, ECS has a pedigree in environmental conservation, as Steve Crapper, Business Development Manager at ECS explained: “We regularly conduct projects in environmentally sensitive habitats for marine and terrestrial organisms. The main objective is to complete work with minimal disturbance to the natural environment, ensuring that infrastructure work benefits animals as well as end users. For example, we regularly construct eel and fish passes at locks and docking areas, so they can migrate unhindered to spawning grounds along the waterways.”

He added: “Infracore green bridges offer the same benefits for terrestrial infrastructure, with FRP providing the durability and ease of construction to cause minimal disturbance to an environment while work is conducted.”