'No evidence' tree removal caused Harlington landslip

There is no evidence to show land slippage on a railway embankment has been caused by too many trees being removed, Network Rail has said.

Engineers are working to stabilise ground near Harlington in Bedfordshire, after bad weather caused damage.

Residents claim the problem occurred because vegetation removal left it "completely barren".

Network Rail said there was "absolutely no evidence" this was the case, but technical experts were investigating.

The organisation, which manages the UK's rail infrastructure, carried out safety work on the embankment north of Harlington station last year, removing high vegetation in line with national regulations for electrified railways.

It said emergency work, which began on Tuesday, involved installing steel piles in the embankment, to "help prevent further ground movement".

It means an amended train service is running along that line, which services East Midlands Railway and Thameslink, with trains also running at a reduced speed.

The work is expected to be completed in March.

Sally Humberstone, who lives next to the line said Network Rail began to cut down trees last March "with a vengeance" and work was still going on in September.

She said she understood the need for safety but said "there's tidying up and leaving it completely barren... there's hardly anything left".

"Don't we all know, if you deforest an area suddenly and we get wet weather and the rain runs off this embankment, that it's going to lead to slippage, it does it all over the world," she said.

Rachel Lowe, from Network Rail, said the points residents had raised about vegetation "are reasonable ones and ones that we are looking into".

"We have absolutely no evidence at this time that the vegetation work that we've carried out to keep the electrified lines that run along the top of that embankment safe had caused this problem," she said.

"Technical experts are investigating exactly what vegetation was taken out and when to make sure that we haven't inadvertently caused this issue.

"We will get to the bottom of what has happened here, if we've done something to cause that, we will learn the lessons from that."

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