Category: 0 Reviewed

Highways England is proposing for an 18-mile section of the A14 in Cambridgeshire to be classified as a motorway once upgrade work is complete, bringing economic and safety benefits, under plans announced by Highways England today (Friday 7 September).

The move will create an unbroken motorway link between London and Peterborough and will increase safety and improve journeys by encouraging local and long-distance traffic onto the most suitable routes.

Highways England is nearly half way through the £1.5bn project to improve 21 miles of the A14 between Cambridge and Huntington – the biggest road upgrade currently in construction in the UK.

That means the main section of the A14 upgrade between the M11 and the A1(M) can have the benefits of a motorway – including variable speed limits which reduce congestion and help traffic move more smoothly. The motorway section of the improved road will be called the A14(M) when it opens in 2020.

Highways England project director David Bray said:

We want the A14 upgrade to be the safest and best road it can possibly be, and we now have an opportunity to make our already robust plans even better by putting the right traffic onto the right roads when the new A14 opens to traffic

Creating a motorway link between the A1(M) and the M11 will mean motorists and hauliers carrying goods across the country will be able to travel more smoothly and safely, while local and slow moving traffic will benefit from the new routes we are introducing.

Cambridgeshire County Councillor Ian Bates said:

The A14 was completely off the agenda until we led a charge with local MPs and partner councils to get the much-needed improvements on this congested road. We fully support the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon major upgrade, which is why we contributed financially.

The A14 becoming a motorway will improve connectivity from the M11 to the A1 at Alconbury and will serve Peterborough. The upgrade of this road is vital to boost the local economy and create jobs. Cambridgeshire’s economy is recognised as being able to help kick start the national economy and unblocking the A14 plays an important part in that

Later this year, Highways England will formally ask the Planning Inspectorate to amend the road’s status from trunk road to motorway, in time for the project opening in 2020. The Secretary of State for Transport will then make the final decision next year.

If the change is given the go ahead, motorway status will also be extended to a three-mile section of the A1 from Alconbury to Brampton, which will be re-named as A1(M).

The A14 upgrade already includes new routes for local traffic, which will be usable by non-motorway traffic, as well as improvements for pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders.

Work on building the £1.5bn upgrade to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon started in November 2016. The project includes widening a total of seven miles of the A14 in each direction (across two sections), a major new bypass south of Huntingdon, widening a three-mile section of the A1 and demolition of a viaduct at Huntingdon, which will support improvements in the town.

For the latest information about the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme, visit the scheme web page, follow @HighwaysEast and @A14C2H on Twitter and visit the scheme’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/A14C2H/.

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 sustained rise in exports will be welcomed by British firms who continue to find success in markets around the world.

In the year to June 2018, the overall value of UK trade in goods exports increased by 5.4% (compared with the same period last year). And the overall value of imports increased by 3.3%.

The figures show an increase in exports from all nations of the UK in the year ending June 2018:

Exports of goods from England increased by 4.3% to £244.8bn;

In Scotland, goods exports increased by 7% to £28.8bn;

In Wales, goods exports increased by 4.2% to £16.6bn;

In Northern Ireland, goods exports increased by 0.8% to £8.5bn;

The positive figures come shortly after the launch of the Government’s Export Strategy which set a new ambition to increase exports as a proportion of UK GDP to 35%.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox MP said:

“The continued rise in exports across the country is fantastic news for Britain – driving job creation and prosperity across the UK. Our firms should look at these figures and be confident about the opportunities they have to grow their business overseas.

“People around the world want to buy British and, with the launch of our new Export Strategy, my international economic department has set out an offer for all businesses to ensure they are able to make the most of the global opportunities this presents.”

The HMRC figures continue to build a positive picture of UK exporting following statistics published last month by the ONS which show an increase in exports of both goods and services, as well as a trade deficit that continues to narrow.

To ensure that the positive trend continues, Dr Liam Fox will also launch a new taskforce to accelerate the government’s Global Britain agenda today at a meeting of the Board of Trade in Coventry.

Lee Garvey was a director of Security Management Services Limited (SMS), which provided security services to private and commercial clients.

SMS was incorporated on 12 March 2015 and traded from Chatsworth Farm, Kirby Cross, Frinton-on-Sea, Essex before the company went into Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation in May 2017, owing £413,156.56 to creditors.

An Insolvency Service investigation following the liquidation found that Lee Garvey was appointed director from 12 March 2015 until 11 May 2017 – the date of Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation.

But between March 2015 and May 2017, Lee Garvey failed to ensure that SMS maintained and preserved adequate accounting records, or in the alternative, failed to deliver up the books and records to the liquidator.

As a result, investigators were not able to verify Lee Garvey’s explanation for cash withdrawals totalling £627,550 made between 29 May 2015 and 2 March 2017 and whether they were used to pay self-employed sub-contractors or made in the ordinary course of business.

Additionally, investigators could not establish the employment status of SMS’s security guards and if they held valid licences with the Security Industry Authority to carry out security work, as well as verifying Lee Garvey’s statement that each guard had a valid licence to carry out work.

On 3 July 2018, Lee Garvey signed an eight-year disqualification undertaking, effective from 31 July 2018, that bans him from acting as a company director or from managing, or in any way controlling, a limited company until 30 July 2026.

Sue Macleod, Chief Investigator of Insolvent Investigations Midlands & West at the Insolvency Service, said:

Maintaining and keeping adequate accounting records is a legal requirement for all companies. Failure to do so is serious misconduct and the length of Mr Garvey’s disqualification reflects this.

Notes to editors

Security Management Services Limited (CRO No. 09485319) was incorporated on 12 March 2015 and traded from Unit 45, Chatsworth Farm 188 Thorpe Road Kirby Cross Frinton-on-Sea Essex CO13 0NJ.

Mr Lee Garvey’s date of birth is June 1972 and he currently resides in Essex.

The matter of unfitness, which Mr Garvey was found to have been in breach of, was that between 12 March 2015 (the commencement of trading) and 11 May 2017 (the date of Liquidation), Mr Lee Garvey failed to ensure that Security Management Services Limited (SMS) maintained and/ or preserved adequate accounting records, or in the alternative has failed to deliver up such records to the Liquidator.

As a result, it has not been possible to:

• verify Mr Garvey’s explanation that cash withdrawals made between 29 May 2015 and 2 March 2017 totalling £627,550 were used to pay self employed contractors, or establish whether these cash withdrawals were made in the ordinary course of business
• establish the accuracy of the micro accounts filed at Companies House for period ended 31 March 2016
• establish the employment status in respect of security guards working on various sites, or verify Mr Garvey’s explanation these were self employed sub-contractors and responsible for their own PAYE/NIC
• establish whether the security guards working on various sites held valid licences with the Security Industry Authority to carry out security work, or verify Mr Garvey’s statement that each guard had a valid licence
• establish why SMS was registered for VAT on 10 June 2015, but failed to charge VAT on its sales invoices until 31 December 2015
• establish SMS’s true liabilities in respect of VAT, PAYE/NIC, CIS and Corporation Tax, or verify the assessments and/ or penalties raised by HMRC in the absence of returns totalling £189,139.76 for VAT, £3,588.42 for CIS and £200 for CT

A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company
• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
• be a receiver of a company’s property

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.

Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.

The Insolvency Service administers the insolvency regime, investigating all compulsory liquidations and individual insolvencies (bankruptcies) through the Official Receiver to establish why they became insolvent. It may also use powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK. In addition, the agency deals with disqualification of directors in corporate failures, assesses and pays statutory entitlement to redundancy payments when an employer cannot or will not pay employees, provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds and advises ministers and other government departments on insolvency law and practice.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.

Contact Press Office

Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube