West Midlands Interchange SFRI

FPCR have been part of the team delivering this major employment project since its inception in 2016. This has included providing landscape, visual and arboricultural expertise as part of the original Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and application for the Development Consent Order (DCO). This is one of a series of Strategic Rail Freight Interchanges that FPCR have been successfully involved with over the past fifteen years.

This project comprises up to 743,200 square metres (sq m) of new rail-served and rail linked warehousing and other associated development, currently under construction on land west of Junction 12 of the M6 in South Staffordshire.

FPCR have been central to the formulation of the scheme and overall development strategy. Extensive consultation through the pre application period involved the preparation of a comprehensive Landscape and Green Infrastructure Strategy and  detailed visualisation studies, arboricultural and Veteran Tree assessments and cumulative and alternative sites assessments. FPCR led the Green Infrastructure stakeholder group with early involvement from Natural England, Canal and River Trust and local authority officers.

The identification of a single rare native black poplar (clone) on site led to the preparation of a successful tree replanting strategy and the propagation of 150 new native black poplars, taken as cuttings from the original tree. These are being planted now as part of the extensive new landscape and habitat proposals that surround the development and also include two new Community Parks and a network of new footways and cycle routes.