The air is scented with the sweet tang of ladies bedstraw and made musical by skylark and blackcap song. An abundance of marbled white butterflies, small skippers and common blue damselflies dart over the flowering knapweed, yarrow and wild carrot. That the largest chalk grassland in the Chilterns is full of wildlife may not surprise you. But the fact that it is completely artificial, only four years old and has been built by the much-maligned HS2, may do. The Western Slopes “rewilding” project is due to open to the public next year on land beside the high-speed railway as it dives under the M25 and into a 10-mile tunnel beneath the Chilterns. The trains may be running late, but the wildlife has already arrived. A decade ago, this area was a vast wheatfield with precious little biodiversity. Today, as the construction effort winds down, more and more of the 127-hectare site is being turned into wildlife-rich grasslands, wet meadows, ponds and small woods. It is now one of the largest wildlife habitat creation projects in south-east England, and has already witnessed the arrival of hedgehog clover, which hasn’t been recorded in Hertfordshire since 1878, alongside water voles, lesser emperor dragonflies...

It’s a truism that any article which has a question for a title will contain the answer ‘no’. I’ve even done this myself before. And this is going to be another example. Or at least a firm ‘maybe b…