Pulse.Assent

Repair teams on the M5 Oldbury Viaduct scheme are gearing up for the next phase of the mammoth scheme with traffic set to switch to the northbound carriageway next month.

Concrete repairs and waterproofing on the southbound carriageway are now nearing completion along a two-mile section of the viaduct.

From Monday 3 September, the entire operation, between junctions 1 and 2, transfers from the south to the northbound carriageway.

For work to begin on the northbound carriageway, traffic will move over onto the completed southbound carriageway. The switching process will last around a week and to minimise disruption will take place gradually overnight to ensure traffic flows during the day.

Highways England Head of Service Delivery, Andrew Butterfield, said:

We’re fast approaching completion of work on the southbound carriageway.

I appreciate it’s not been straightforward getting here. We were only able to fully assess the condition of the southbound carriageway once the work had started and found around 6,000 individual repairs were needed, which is 4,500 more than anticipated. To add to the challenges, we had one of the harshest winters, followed by warmest summers in years.

As a result, work on this section has taken longer than expected, but we’re committing every resource available to get this work done as safely and quickly as possible.
“We understand the level of disruption this project involves, and we’d like to thank motorists, businesses and residents for their patience.

At more than £100 million, M5 Oldbury is believed to be the largest concrete repair project, by value, ever carried out in Britain. At the same time, it is also thought to be the largest scaffolding project in Europe, with over 400 hundred miles of scaffolding erected, enough scaffold boards to cover seven football pitches and enough scaffold staircases to reach the top of Ben Nevis and Snowdon.

Much of the work takes place underneath the viaduct and so the workforce, averaging around 500 people, cannot always be seen by the travelling public.

To keep the motorway open during the work, a contraflow system is currently in place with traffic using the carriageway with two lanes operating in each direction, along with a 30mph speed limit.

Slip roads at junctions 1 and 2 will remain open once the switch takes place to ease effects on the local network.
When the main concrete repairs are completed, the M5 will return to three narrow lanes in each direction so that work, including central reservation upgrades, can take place.
For more information about the work at Oldbury viaduct visit https://www.highwaysengland.co.uk/oldburyviaduct.

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.

A new pioneering noise barrier which will improve the lives of residents living next to the M1 at Wakefield will be installed later this year.

Living next to a motorway has its benefits, it makes it easier to access surrounding towns and cities to visit friends and family, or commute to work, but the noise of the motorway can be an issue for some communities.

The innovative design being installed at the Denby Dale junction has never been used before in the UK. The barrier not only reduces noise but will also act as a safety barrier.

Highways England’s project manager Sujad Hussain said:

There has been a long standing issue of noise from the motorway at this location and by installing 4 sections of barrier we will be able to improve noise levels for residents living nearby.

We are planning to start work in November but before then we will be holding a drop in session in September for people to find out more about the work. I would encourage people to come along and ask the project team any questions they may have about the barrier and the work that is planned.

Highways England is installing the barrier on 4 sections of the M1 at junction 39: On the southbound carriageway and southbound entry slip road and on the northbound carriageway and northbound exit slip road.

The barriers, 3 at 3 metres high and 1 at 1.85 metres, will be constructed off site meaning there will be less chance of weather having an impact on the work. It will also be safer as there will be fewer vehicles moving around the work site.

During the work a 50mph speed restriction will be in place for safety reasons. The hard shoulder and lane 1 on the main carriageways will be closed along with lane 1 on the northbound exit and southbound entry slip roads so a temporary safety barrier can be installed while the work is taking place. The same slip roads will be closed overnight with clearly signed diversions in place.

Anyone interested in the work can come along to a drop in event on Wednesday 5 September, 2pm-8pm in the Boardroom, second floor, Cedar Court Hotel, Denby Dale Road, Calder Grove, Wakefield, WF4 3QZ

The media is invited to attend the event between 2.30pm and 3pm. Please confirm attendance with Highways England Media Relations Manager Michaela Maunders on 07701295018.

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

A series of major new UK aid programmes will help bring criminals to justice and recover millions of pounds of illegal assets in developing countries, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt has announced.

Illicit finance sees “dirty money” diverted away from people in poor countries to individuals involved in crime, terrorism and fraud. This not only harms economies and legitimate financial sectors, but also erodes the confidence of potential investors.

The package, announced as Prime Minister Theresa May visits Kenya, will:

• create new centres of British expertise in major financials hubs to tackle financial crime more effectively;
• strengthen efforts in southern and eastern Africa to recover illegal money flows from crime, fraud and corruption through the courts;
• support Kenyan authorities to bring people committing financial crimes to justice by helping to identify proceeds of crime and seizing criminal property;
• train and mentor law enforcements officials in southern and eastern Africa to improve criminal justice systems by tightening legislation and strengthen investigation techniques, which will help to build their capacity to clamp down on serious organised crime, ranging from drugs and people trafficking to rhino and elephant poaching; and
• make use of British asset recovery experts by connecting them with counterparts across the globe.

During the visit, Minister for Africa Harriett Baldwin signed a new agreement with the Kenyan government to return stolen and corrupt funds that have been moved out of Kenya and are hidden in banks in the UK.

All stolen funds found and returned to Kenya will be used exclusively for development projects, in sectors including education and health. This includes over £3.5 million in proceeds of crime seized by courts in Jersey.

This agreement builds on our commitment made at the 2016 London Anti-Corruption Summit to stand shoulder to shoulder with countries who are committed to tackling corruption.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said:

Financial crime hurts the world’s poorest the most, taking money away from schools, hospitals and other vital services in developing countries. Today’s UK aid package will stop dirty money in its tracks and send a message to crooks that we are clamping down on spaces for them to hide their illegally gained wealth.

Even small decreases in illegal financial flows will give developing countries millions of pounds more to invest in their economies, helping them to stand on their own two feet and create a more prosperous future.

Disrupting organised global criminals before they can directly threaten the UK is firmly in our national interest, and will lead to better trade links with African countries by reassuring British businesses that they can invest with confidence.

The new commitments build on the UK’s existing leadership in tackling illicit financial flows, and over the last three years this has supported African law enforcement officials to develop skills which helped them to seize, confiscate or preserve over $76 million of illegal assets in 2017.

Notes to editors

• The African Union and United Nations High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) from Africa claim that over the last 50 years, Africa is estimated to have lost in excess of $1 trillion in IFFs.

Following an open competition, the Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt, is pleased to announce that Dr Tamsyn Barton has been selected as the Government’s preferred candidate to succeed Dr Alison Evans as Chief Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), the independent body responsible for scrutiny of UK aid.

Dr Barton was identified following a rigorous selection process, which was conducted in accordance with the Public Appointments Governance Code and validated by an independent assessor from the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

The appointment is now subject to an International Development Select Committee pre-appointment hearing, scheduled to take place next Tuesday, 4 September 2018.

Biography: Dr Tamsyn Barton

Dr Barton was until recently the Chief Executive of Bond, following an extensive and varied career in international development since 1993. She was previously Director-General at the European Investment Bank, which she also represented on the Board of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.

Prior to that, Dr Barton worked for a range of NGOs and the Department for International Development in a range of policy and programme management roles, in both India and the UK. She is also a Trustee of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Notes to editors:

1. Pre-appointment hearings involve select committees taking evidence from the preferred candidate for certain public appointments before they are confirmed. Following the public hearings, committees publish a report setting out their views on the candidate’s suitability for the post.
2. Pre-appointment hearings are non-binding but Ministers will consider the committee’s views before deciding whether to proceed with an appointment.
3. All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process.
4. ICAI’s current chief commissioner, Dr Alison Evans, will leave ICAI at the end of 2018 to take up a post as Director General Evaluation at the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group.

• New UK-Kenya security compact builds on our cooperation to tackle shared threats
• Money lost to corruption and hidden in Britain will be returned to the people of Kenya

British paedophiles who target and abuse vulnerable children in Kenya will be brought to justice thanks to a new cyber centre being built by Britain in Nairobi, the Prime Minister will announce today.

Online child sex abuse is a global problem with images created and shared across the world, including in Kenya. This new centre will help the Kenyan police stop these images being distributed online to help protect children from being abused.

The centre will also tackle a major barrier that prevents these predators being caught and prosecuted.

Currently, Kenyan authorities do not receive reporting of material of child sexual abuse from US-based global tech companies because the specific, secure channels needed to do so do not exist in the country.

With the support of British funding, the new specialist cyber centre will, for the first time, enable Kenyan authorities to access data on abuse, provided the by tech firms, ensuring perpetrators can be brought to justice.

Britain’s funding of the cyber centre will mean the Kenyan police can now identify potential victims, investigate abuse and prosecute abusers. This builds on existing work by the UK’s National Crime Agency to set up Kenya’s Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU) and train and mentor its staff.

The new cyber centre being announced today – the first of its kind in Africa – will be based within this existing unit, which is seeing an increase in cases of child abuse. The AHTCPU has over 100 live investigations underway and since March 2016 has protected around 400 children and supported the arrest of around 40 suspects.

The child protection unit has already helped secure convictions in the UK of British paedophiles who’ve sexually abused children in Kenya. This includes:

• Simon Harris from Shropshire who was sentenced to 14 years in prison at Birmingham Crown Court in 2015 for sexually abusing Kenyan street children
• Keith Morris from Hull who was sentenced to 18 and a half years in prison at Leeds Crown Court in 2018 for sexually abusing Kenyan children in a village near Mombasa

Prime Minister Theresa May said:

Online child exploitation is an abhorrent crime and we are determined to ensure there is no place to hide for predators who use the internet to share images of abuse across borders, too often with impunity.

This builds on our ongoing work with Kenya on security and criminal justice – a partnership which has already helped to convict and imprison terrorists in the UK.

The cyber wing forms part of a new UK-Kenya security compact, signed today by Minister for Africa, Harriett Baldwin, and Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Monica Juma, and witnessed by Prime Minister May and President Kenyatta.

Through the new security pact, the UK has also committed to:

• offer training in community security to help strengthen the police’s engagement with marginalised communities, to help Kenya tackle violence against girls and women and to prevent extremism by dealing with the threat at source
• share expertise with Kenya’s criminal justice system to strengthen the procedures for processing complex legal cases including terrorism and organised crime – improving the use of terrorism legislation and strengthening interagency working to help bring offenders to justice in the UK and Kenya
• provide new support for aviation security including machines to detect explosives to keep the 100,000 Brits who visit Kenya every year safe by preventing attacks in the country and on direct flights to the UK

This builds on our ongoing cooperation through the first UK-Kenya Security Compact, agreed in 2015, and sets out a new programme of work for the years ahead.

The 2015 pact has led to two terrorism convictions in the UK, the establishment of a counter-IED training centre in Nairobi for regional security forces fighting Al-Shabaab, the extradition of wanted criminals from the UK to Kenya, and better aviation security – among other results.

And in a further example of UK and Kenyan domestic law enforcement working together to tackle shared threats, Minister for Africa Harriett Baldwin will sign an agreement in Nairobi today, witnessed by the Prime Minister, to return to the Kenyan people money that’s been lost to crime and corruption in Kenya and concealed in banks and assets in the UK.

Stolen funds found in Britain can now be used to fund development projects in sectors such as health and education. This includes over £3.6 million in proceeds of crime seized by courts in Jersey.

Other initiatives to be announced today to tackle corruption, increase investor confidence, encourage UK trade and investment and support economic growth in Africa include:

• a new programme to counter illicit financial flows across southern and eastern Africa to help regional law enforcement recover illegal funds and disrupt serious organised crime networks
• new practical guidance to help British companies overcome barriers to doing business in Kenya and other emerging markets, including advice on dealing with requests for bribes and human rights issues in supply chains – with tailored support to be offered to SMEs