HS2 has said a new conveyor over the Grand Union Canal will remove 30,000 HGV trips from local roads.

The conveyor is set to move over 750,000 tonnes of excavated material as HS2 begins building the Long Itchington Wood Tunnel.

Contractor Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV) has built the 254-metre long machine which will opertae until early 2023, before it is moved to Water Orton in North Warwickshire.

Alan Payne, senior project manager at HS2 Ltd said: "We're working closely with our supply chain to reduce carbon right across the project and find construction solutions to minimise disruption around our work sites.

"It's initiatives like this that will help us achieve our ambitious target of being net zero carbon as a project from 2035, helping to put HS2 at the centre of Britain's sustainable transport network."

Excavation of the tunnel will produce around 500,000 tonnes of mud and soil, which is processed on-site before being transported by the conveyer.

The soil will be used to build embankments along the route of HS2.

A further 250,000 tonnes of material will come from excavations for a railway cutting, which will also be transported by the conveyor.

In December 2021, HS2 CEO Mark Thurston launched the tunnel boring machine 'Dorothy' – named after the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry - on its one mile journey underneath the Warwickshire countryside.

The tunnel will preserve the Long Itchington Wood above the site, which is classified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Dorothy is expected to complete the first bore later in the summer, and this will be the first tunnel breakthrough on the HS2 project.