Month: May 2018

Road users not heading to the festival are being advised to seek alternative routes to avoid delays.

About 80,000 people are expected at the three-day festival, being staged from Friday 8 to Sunday 10 June, and surrounding roads are likely to be very busy.

Gates to the campsite open at midday on Wednesday 6 June to allow an expected 60,000 or more campers to spread their arrival times. Up to 20,000 visitors are expected to buy day tickets.

Sarah Redfearn, Highways England’s Emergency Planning Officer for the East Midlands, said:

Major roads and motorways in the area, including the M1, A42, A50 and A453, are likely to be busy.

All routes to the festival will be well signposted, but people travelling in the area should plan their journey in advance.

Festival-goers can check the traffic conditions using our Highways England travel app, or follow us on Twitter @HighwaysEMIDS to check the latest traffic updates before you set out.

Donington Park is located next to East Midlands Airport, four miles west of junction 23a of the M1 and five miles from junction 24. Anyone travelling to the airport should allow plenty of extra travel time for their journey.

Highways England will use electronic message boards on surrounding motorways to advise people of any delays. Extra Traffic Officers are also being deployed for the duration, both in event control and around junction 24 of the M1, to assist motorists, clear incidents quickly and keep traffic moving.

Highways England provides live traffic information via its website, local and national radio travel bulletins, electronic road signs and mobile platforms, such as Android and iPhone apps. Further information is available from the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Image supplied by Festival Republic // Download Festival taken by Paulo Gonçalves

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

This June sees the 50th anniversary of work starting to build Spaghetti Junction – the amazing Midlands road structure, used daily by tens of thousands of people travelling in and out of Birmingham, and through the region to go up and down the country.

In a video released today by the Government company, celebrities line up to sing the praises of Spaghetti Junction, officially named Gravelly Hill Interchange.

In a video released today

Award-winning chef and proud ‘Brummie’ Glynn Purnell said:

Whenever I think of Spaghetti Junction, I think of home. Whenever I’d been on my holidays to Weymouth as a child or to see my nan, I always knew I was home whenever I saw the Spaghetti Junction.

There is also a special appearance from music-mogul and proud-Midlander Pete Waterman. He said:

When I think of Spaghetti Junction, for me I think of record industry. In the 70s, I wouldn’t have been able to get in and out of Birmingham as quickly as I did without Spaghetti Junction.

Every day radio shows broadcast Highways England traffic news to listeners wanting up to the minute information about what is happening on the roads.

Radio presenter Ed James from Heart FM’s breakfast said he thought the road was “iconic” while Tim Warwood from Free Radio said:

It is amazing because as a kid whenever I went out with my parents, they’d be like, look its Spaghetti Junction. It is amazing.

The launch of the video coincides with the UK currently facing a shortfall of 20,000 engineering graduates a year, with half of companies in the sector saying this has a significant impact on productivity and growth.

By bringing young people face to face with engineering experiences and role models, the Year of Engineering campaign aims to showcase the creativity and innovation of engineering careers and widen the pool of young people from all backgrounds who are willing to consider the profession, diversifying a workforce that is 91% male and 94% white.

Highways England Customer Service Director, Melanie Clarke said:

This special video is a fitting tribute to the famous structure and clearly captures the pride that the people of Birmingham and those that use it every day continue to hold for the road. When it was designed 50 years ago nobody could have predicted that the anniversary of work starting on the road would coincide with the Year of Engineering and there is no better tribute to the role of engineering than Spaghetti Junction.

The strategic road network in England connects businesses, families and friends. Yet the country needs more of the people that build them. At Highways England we’re backing the Year of Engineering campaign and appealing to young people to consider engineering as a rewarding career.

HM Government Envoy for the Year of Engineering, Stephen Metcalfe MP, said:

The Year of Engineering is a chance to show young people from all backgrounds the amazing things they could achieve as engineers, so it’s fantastic to be celebrating 50 years of one of the UK’s most iconic engineering feats.

Spaghetti Junction is a great example of how engineering transforms the way we live, work and travel. Advances in technology, energy, healthcare and infrastructure mean engineers will continue to play a vital role in all our lives, so it’s more important than ever that we inspire young people and their parents to take a closer look at the opportunities that this creative, innovative profession could offer them.

Any young people inspired to explore a career in engineering are encouraged to visit the Year of Engineering website which has further information.

Spaghetti Junction in numbers:

• It is the interchange of the M6, A38, A38 (M) connecting Birmingham and the M6
• Work started to build the road in 1968
• It took four years to build and is subject to regular maintenance programmes many of which take place underneath the road
• Some of the columns elevating the structure reach some 80ft
• Spaghetti Junction continues to hold international acclaim having formed the backdrop for filming for Ready Player One with some scenes filmed underneath the structure
• The towering concrete columns, some reaching to 80 feet high, formed the ideal backdrop to the film, which was in cinemas earlier this year
• For the filming, special templates featuring graffiti were stuck to the concrete structures and various props added into the set, including cars and tyres, with a ‘camp’ constructed for the new film
• The film crew took considerable effort to protect the structure and ensure nothing was damaged during filming

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

The new flyover will create an uninterrupted link for drivers staying on the A249 and will free up extra space on the Stockbury roundabout. Its addition to the project reflects feedback received during a public consultation last autumn.

Steve Hoesli, Programme Leader Highways England, said:

The Stockbury roundabout junction is a vital interchange between two of the county’s busiest roads. These improvements will simplify journeys for people travelling to and from Sittingbourne, the Isle of Sheppey, port of Sheerness and Maidstone, which is great news for anyone living, working or travelling in the area.

Around 2,000 people took part in the consultation; it was clear from people’s feedback that these improvements are desperately needed, but also that just upgrading the roundabout would not be enough. Today’s announcement takes that feedback on board, and the A249 flyover will provide additional benefits for anyone using the junction. Excellent infrastructure is vital to a successful economy, and the investments we are making in Kent will deliver massive benefits for people and businesses across the region.

As well as the new flyover providing an uninterrupted flow for drivers on the A249, there will be two new dedicated single left turn filter lanes for traffic travelling between the A249 and the M2. The existing slip road leading to and from the M2 to the Stockbury Roundabout will also be improved. The roundabout will be freed up for drivers making other turns at the junction, and for local traffic. Better and safer links will be created to and from the roundabout. The upgrade will also provide better facilities for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders in the vicinity of the junction.

The preferred route published today is known as (Option 4H1) and increases the safety benefits over the original proposal presented at consultation, Option 12A.

Funding for the scheme comes from the Department for Transport’s £15bn Roads Investment Strategy, announced in 2014, together with a £2.5 million contribution from Kent County Council and their partners.

The consultation report has been published on the Highways England website and the preferred route announcement brochure has also been published and is available on the consultation page and at a variety of locations like council offices and libraries in the area.

There will be further opportunities to comment on the preferred route announced today, and there is likely to be a series of public information events in late 2018 or early 2019. Subject to statutory processed, construction work on the upgrade could start as early as spring 2020.

Anyone interested in the scheme can sign up to receive updates via the project page on the Highways England website.

Shaftesbury-based drink brand, Yuyo, has announced it will export its innovative range of Latin American-inspired drink infusions to Brazil this year as part of its exporting growth plans.

The business, which already exports to 7 countries worldwide, boosted its international orders by 42% between 2015 and 2017.

Yuyo was founded in 2016 by Rosie Marteau and Charles Grummit after they travelled to Latin America and discovered yerba mate, a ‘super herb’ that is used in many traditional South American drinks. The company now stocks a range of yerba mate drink infusions across the UK through retailers like Ocado, Whole Foods and Revital. It also has its own e-commerce site.

Due to Yuyo’s globally-appealing brand, the business has found international success in markets such as the US, Sweden and France.

Exporting currently makes up 40% of the company’s £100,000 annual turnover and Rosie and Charles now plan to increase this further by exporting to Brazil in the next 3 months and target Australia in 2019.

To support its exporting operations, the company received support from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and Department for International Trade (DIT), who helped the business identify new international markets and register its intellectual property in the US, Europe and Australia.

As part of the Food is GREAT campaign, Defra and DIT are supporting many businesses to take the leap and sell their food and drink products abroad. The campaign is a cross-departmental initiative to showcase the calibre of UK food and drink overseas and help firms build new exporting relationships.

Rosie Marteau, co-founder of Yuyo, said:

Exporting has always been fundamental to our business plans as we knew our products could have a global appeal. We’re finding international buyers are increasingly associating UK goods with high quality and on-trend packaging, and we’re looking to tap into this even more by reaching out to new markets including Brazil. Brazil is the home of yerba mate itself, but it looks to Europe for innovative brands like ours.

Of course, exporting is not without its challenges. One of the main factors we had to consider was regulation around ingredients and labelling. It’s very expensive to redesign packaging for a global market. We found a way around this at first by putting ingredients stickers over our current packaging so that it complied with international guidelines. This also gave us the flexibility to test our products in different markets without having to spend too much money. Once we’d proven our ability to trade internationally we created packs with seven different world languages on the back.

We’ve been working with DIT in the South West since we launched 2 years ago and their support has been vital. The team host ‘meet the buyer’ events for us to network with potential clients and distributors, which has resulted in increased business globally. The best advice I could give to firms looking to export would be to see it as an extension of their current operations. The hard part of launching a product has already been done, so there’s no reason not to expand your prospects to include overseas buyers too. If we can do it, so can others.

Paul Shand, DIT’s Head of South West, said:

Yuyo is a great example of a local business that’s harnessing the wide range of benefits exporting can bring. It’s encouraging to see such a young company target new markets like Australia as well as continuing to make in-roads into its established markets, like the US and Europe.

We know that firms that trade internationally are more successful, profitable and resilient than their non-exporting counterparts. Exporting for the first time can be seen as a challenge, particularly for firms with limited time resource and capacity, but that’s why we have a team of international trade advisers in the South West to guide firms through the exporting process. Our advisers can help companies target new territories and advise them on matters such as tax, regulation and logistics.

Further information

• Contact the DIT Media Team on 020 7215 2000 or email newsdesk@trade.gov.uk
• Follow us @tradegovuk and at gov.uk/dit

The Regulator of Social Housing’s latest Quarterly survey shows that the social housing sector has sufficient access to finance and is in a robust position to respond to any changes to the wider economic environment.

The survey report, published today (31 May 2018), covers the period 1 January 2018 to 31 March 2018 and includes forecasts up to 31 March 2019. This quarter’s survey, based on responses from 229 private registered providers (PRPs) and PRP groups who own or manage more than 1,000 homes, also includes annual data relating to private finance, impairment and non-registered entities.

Some of the main findings in this quarter include:

• in the year to March 2018, providers agreed £10.1 billion of new facilities, £2.5 billion more than in the previous year
• 95% of providers having sufficient debt facilities to last over 12 months or more – with the sector’s re-financing risk and re-pricing risk remaining low
• an moderate increase in the 18 month pipeline for both affordable home ownership (AHO) and market sales
• total investment in new supply at £10.0 billion in the 12 months to March 2018 was broadly in line with forecasts – with investment in new housing supply expected to be £14.3 billion over the 12 month forecast period
• capitalised major repairs increased 4% in the year to March 2018, and are forecast to increase further in the year to March 2019

Fiona MacGregor, Executive Director of Regulation, said:

The survey provides a regular source of information regarding the financial health of PRPs, in particular with regard to their liquidity position. The March survey includes additional annual data, particularly relating to private finance. Where any information received through the Quarterly survey indicates a potential concern, this is followed up with providers.

Although providers currently remain in a strong financial position, the regulator will continue to closely monitor sales exposure and sales activity. Where sales revenues are lower than forecast or where a provider is reliant on sales receipts, we will seek assurance that the individual providers have sufficient access to liquidity.

The Quarterly survey sets out information such as the amount of borrowing by registered providers and where they have borrowed t from, the number of affordable home ownership homes and market sale homes they have built and sold. Alongside a programme of periodic In Depth Assessments and regular financial stability checks, it provides regulatory assurance on the sector’s financial strength and the continued viability of individual providers.

The regulator’s Quarterly surveys are available on our website.

Further information

The regulation of social housing is the responsibility of the Regulation Committee, a statutory committee of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). The organisation refers to itself as the Regulator of Social Housing in undertaking the functions of the Regulation Committee. Homes England is the trading name of the HCA’s non-regulation functions.

The regulator’s purpose is to promote a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver homes that meet a range of needs. It does this by undertaking robust economic regulation focusing on governance, financial viability and value for money that maintains lender confidence and protects the taxpayer. It also sets consumer standards and may take action if these standards are breached and there is a significant risk of serious detriment to tenants or potential tenants.

For more information visit the RSH website.

Our About the Regulator of Social Housing page has contact details for media enquiries.

For general queries to RSH, please email enquiries@rsh.gov.uk or call 0300 124 5225.