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'Tree grabbing' M25/A3 widening scheme rejected

RHS View of trees near the A3RHS
A protective bank of trees separates the "trials field" from the A3

A road scheme which TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh said threatened a swathe of Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) woodland has been rejected.

The RHS said one of the two options to improve the A3/M25 Junction near Wisley in Surrey would have taken out 500 trees, including giant redwoods.

Highways England has chosen a different scheme which it says will minimise the impact on trees.

RHS Wisley said it still had concerns about access to the garden from the A3.

Two options for the £175m upgrade were put to public consultation between December 2016 and February 2017.

Highways England said new link roads and an enlarged roundabout will be built at the junction of the A3 and M25 which will shave up to seven minutes off road users' journeys when completed.

PA/RHS Alan Titchmarsh at RHS WisleyPA/RHS
Some of the trees at Wisley are over 100 years old

The rejected scheme could have seen RHS Wisley lose 500 trees, including one planted by the Queen to mark her silver jubilee.

Titchmarsh, an RHS ambassador, had described the plan as "garden-grabbing".

RHS View of trees near the A3RHS
The gardens attract 1.2m visitors each year

Chris Welby-Everard from Highways England said: "The plans we are putting forward today will make a real difference to all those journeys while respecting the protected environments nearby."

The agency said the other option had been rejected "due to strong concerns about the negative impact on the surrounding environment".

A spokesman for RHS Wisley said: "We are very grateful for the immense support we've received nationally to save these trees and our huge thanks go to some 130,000 people who signed our petition to save Wisley Garden and to Alan Titchmarsh who helped champion this cause."

But the spokesman said under the chosen proposal some visitors would face increases to their journeys of seven miles which would put some people off visiting and "could harmfully impact the charitable income of the RHS."