HS2: 'Ground-breaking' moment in tunnelling work

'Dorothy' started tunnelling below ground last December

A huge HS2 tunnelling machine has completed a one-mile journey underneath an ancient Warwickshire wood.

The 2,000-tonne machine started boring under Long Itchington Wood in December last year and is the first tunnel breakthrough on the London to Birmingham route.   

Work is being done in a bid to preserve the ancient woodland, officials say.

HS2 minister Trudy Harrison described it as "quite literally, a ground-breaking moment" for the scheme.

She said it demonstrated the government was "getting on with delivering on our promises and progressing our transformative plans to boost transport, bring communities together and level up the North and Midlands".

However, the scheme is opposed by environmental activists including Stop HS2, which criticises the destruction of woodland and argues more investment in short commuter rail services is needed.

Long Itchington Wood is classified as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) and has ecosystems that have taken hundreds of years to establish, the HS2 team behind the work said.

The machine was named Dorothy, after Dorothy Hodgkin. In 1964, she became the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.