can ‘green bridges’ help animals cross the UK’s motorways in safety?

[Smadar Spector]

Six lanes of tarmac and vehicles doing 70mph’: can ‘green bridges’ help animals cross the UK’s motorways in safety?
Guardian. 12 May 2026.

When James Herd moved near to Wisley Common 17 years ago, the heathland nature reserve was teeming with wildlife. “I’d take the dog around the common in spring and summer, and every few hundred metres I’d hear the rustle of a lizard in the undergrowth – and I’d see adders,” he says.  But over the past decade, the Surrey Wildlife Trust’s director of reserves management, who oversees the internationally important habitat, has seen that wildlife become depleted.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/12/cockrow-green-bridge-wildlife-road-crossings-aoe

hen James Herd moved near to Wisley Common 17 years ago, the heathland nature reserve was teeming with wildlife. “I’d take the dog around the common in spring and summer, and every few hundred metres I’d hear the rustle of a lizard in the undergrowth – and I’d see adders,” he says.

But over the past decade, the Surrey Wildlife Trust’s director of reserves management, who oversees the internationally important habitat, has seen that wildlife become depleted.

“There was a period, eight or nine years ago, when I’d get home and think: ‘God, I didn’t see or hear any evidence of reptiles.’”

To understand the decline, he says, you have to understand the route of the A3, a main arterial road into London that carries hundreds of thousands of vehicles a day.

The road cuts in half the protected Wisley and Ockham commons, rare lowland heath in Surrey that for centuries has been home to a rich pocket of biodiversity, including the sand lizard, Britain’s rarest lizard.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.   (Will Rogers)

the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead

Until every cage is empty. Until every animal is free

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