TV personality and gardener Alan Titchmarsh is calling for compensation after the Royal Horticultural Society suffered “catastrophic” financial losses due to ongoing A3/M25 roadworks.
Balfour Beatty is delivering the M25 junction 10/A3 Wisley Interchange Improvement Scheme for National Highways. The project includes the construction of four new slip roads at junction 10 and widening of the A3 to four lanes on either side of it.
RHS says the roadworks have led to 350,000 fewer people visiting its garden at Wisley, resulting in losses of £6m to date. Titchmarsh is asking the public to sign a petition by the RHS, of which he is vice-president, urging the government to consider a special case for compensation.
The RHS said the impact will total £11m when the roadworks finish in 2026.
Titchmarsh said: “These losses are catastrophic not only for the RHS, but for the whole of the UK in terms of the incredible work the RHS does to help people and planet and educating and supporting millions of gardeners to garden more sustainably for a better future.”
Compensation schemes
National Highways schemes are subject to the compensation code under the 1961 Land Compensation Act. However, RHS’s director general Clare Matterson CBE said highways compensation legislation is “complicated” and “unlikely to enable the RHS to recoup these devastating losses”.
Matterson added: “Whilst we’re grateful for the new road and the positive difference it is now beginning to make following months of disruption, going back to our original objections it continues to be a flawed solution that increases car miles around junction 10 by some one million kilometres per annum, affecting the Special Protection Area. We continue to believe circular routing could have been avoided, saving these increased car miles, by creating slip roads off the A3.”
Chris Welby-Everard, National Highways’ regional delivery director, said: “We are continuing to engage with RHS Wisley on their concerns. This important project will reduce congestion, improve safety, and bring economic and environmental benefits to the local community.”
On its project website, Balfour Beatty says it is “working closely […] with local stakeholders who are impacted by our works”.
It adds: “This includes RHS Garden Wisley, whose annual flower show event has run smoothly over the past two years thanks to the bespoke traffic management solution developed in collaboration with them and other key local stakeholders.”
The A3/M25 works began in September 2022. The interchange is the busiest section of the M25 with more than 300,000 vehicles travelling through it daily.
