Pulse.Assent

Defra Ministers have appointed Krishnan Guru-Murthy to the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens. They have also reappointed Catherine Dugmore and Nick Baird for second terms.
RBG Kew is an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body created under the National Heritage Act 1983, is sponsored by Defra. The Board of Trustees comprises a Chairman and eleven members.

Trustees provide non executive leadership and support to the executive through regular Board meetings, committees and groups.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy’s appointment is for 3 years and will run from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2021. Catherine Dugmore’s and Nick Baird’s reappointments are for 3 years and will run from 1 June 2018 to 31 May 2021 and from 1 November 2018 to 31 October 2021, respectively.

The appointments have been made in accordance with the Ministerial Governance Code on Public Appointments. All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process.

There is a requirement for appointees’ political activity (if significant) to be made public. The appointees have not declared any significant political activity in the past five years.

Trustees do not receive any direct remuneration for their services, although reasonable travel and subsistence expenses can be reimbursed.

Biographical details of Trustees

Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Krishnan Guru-Murthy is a presenter and reporter on Channel 4 News and on Channel 4’s Unreported World. He was previously a presenter and reporter for the BBC. He is a member of the executive committee of the Edinburgh Television Festival and a patron of Duchenne Children’s Trust.

Catherine Dugmore

Catherine Dugmore is a qualified Chartered Accountant. From 1988 to 2002 Catherine worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers, latterly as an audit partner based in Johannesburg. In addition to her role as a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Catherine is a Board Member of Natural England and a Trustee of WWF-UK. She has worked in the NHS since 2012 and currently holds a non-executive role at Hertfordshire Partnership Foundation Trust. She was formerly Vice-Chair and Trustee of Action for Children and Chair of Victim Support.

Nick Baird

Nick Baird is currently Group Corporate Affairs Director of Centrica plc. He previously had a long and varied career in Government, his roles including CEO of UK Trade and Investment, Director General in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office leading its work on Europe, the global economy and consular issues, and British Ambassador to Turkey from 2006 to 2009.

32 miles of the M4 will have an extra lane created in both directions, with upgraded signs, signals and technology to inform drivers about conditions ahead.

Plans about the upgrade are going on show this weekend, Saturday 7 July, with the first of six public events ahead of main construction starting later this year.

Drivers, business owners and local residents are invited to find out more about the plans, which will add an extra lane in each direction to the M4 between junction 3, near Hayes, and junction 12 at Theale, to upgrade it to an all-lane-running smart motorway. New technology will help to manage traffic to reduce delays and give drivers up to date information about conditions on the road ahead.

Work is due to start this autumn on the stretch between junctions 8/9 and 10, between Maidenhead and Wokingham. Six public information events are being held in the area, starting in Maidenhead this weekend, and visiting Wokingham, Theale and Reading over the next two weeks.

The M4 smart motorway scheme has already been through a comprehensive consultation as part of the complex planning process, and people interested in finding out more about the plans are encouraged to attend an event and put any questions directly to the project team. Further events will take place early next year between junctions 8/9 and junction 3 (Hayes).

Highways England delivery director Mike Grant said:

Upgrading the M4 to a smart motorway between junctions 3 and 12 is a massive job and will provide huge benefits not only to the 130,000 drivers using it each day by tackling congestion and improving journey times, but also for business travellers and holiday makers using the corridor to get to and from the airports in the south, as well as residents and businesses based in the area.

Smart motorways add vital capacity to our motorway network and are central to our ambitious plans for modernising the motorway network, adding 120 miles of new lanes to motorways in the South East by 2020. Drivers will also see better information about conditions through new smart motorway technology which helps us to manage incidents, smooth traffic flow, make journeys more reliable and improve journey times, while maintaining high levels of safety.

The public exhibitions starting this weekend are an ideal place for anyone interested in the upgrade of the M4 to a smart motorway to meet the project team and find out more.

The M4 is the main strategic route between London, the west of England and Wales.

Under the plans, the hard shoulder will be permanently converted into a live running lane between junctions 3 and 12 in both directions. New signs and signals will be used to vary the speed limit to reduce congestion at busy times, and to control traffic if there is an obstruction on the road ahead.

Work is scheduled to start in September this year, and will be carried out in phases, with the smart motorway being fully operational in spring 2022.

Public information events are starting this weekend (Saturday 7 July, Holyport War Memorial Hall, near Maidenhead) with a further five events running until Thursday 19 July in Reading. People are encouraged to attend to find out more about the plans and put any questions directly to the project team. Further events will be held over the next few months along the route of the scheme.

Anyone interested in the scheme can visit the project page on the Highways England website.

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 man who set a young mother alight and watched her burn has today been jailed for life after the Solicitor General, Robert Buckland QC MP, personally argued at the Court of Appeal that his original sentence was too low.

The victim Kirsten Ashby, 27, had known the offender Raymond Bowen, 24, for about a week through her friendship with Mr Bowen’s girlfriend. On the night of the offence, Ms Ashby had wanted to check on her friend, who she was concerned was having a diabetic fit.

When Ms Ashby suggested calling an ambulance, Mr Bowen attacked her, pouring petrol over her before throwing a lighter at her. He then stood back and watched as she tried to put out the fire.

Ms Ashby sustained such severe burns to her face, arms, and torso that doctors were unsure she would survive the night. She faces many years of surgery and permanent disfigurement, as well as suffering serious psychological trauma.

Mr Bowen was originally sentenced at Luton Crown Court in April, where he was given a sentence of 19 years’ imprisonment with a licence extension of 5 years. Today, after the Solicitor General argued at the Court of Appeal, he was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 12 years.

Commenting on the sentence increase, the Solicitor General said:

This was an appalling, unprovoked attack which nearly led to the death of a young woman. The victim will live with the physical and psychological impact of Bowen’s actions for years to come. I am pleased that the Court of Appeal has today decided to increase Bowen’s sentence, and hope it goes some way to righting this atrocious wrong.

Running through the dale from just south of Kidstones to its confluence with the River Ure just down from Aysgarth Falls, Bishopdale Beck can quickly overtop and cause flooding in heavy rain.

The main road through the dale, the B6160, can become impassable and result in local residents in villages, such as Kidstones and Newbiggin, being unable to access vital infrastructure including schools, doctors’ surgeries and shops.

But now a natural flood management (NFM) scheme aims to better protect the community in Bishopdale, which was chosen as one of three schemes in Yorkshire to benefit from an equal share of £501,000 of Government funding NFM initiatives.

Measures will be selected from a range of NFM interventions, including run-off management, using earth bunds and leaky wooden dams, peatland restoration, woodland creation, riparian buffer strips and management of floodplain grazing.

Simon Stokes, of the Environment Agency, said the scheme has been made possible by partner organisations coming together.

He said:

We look forward to working with the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and the local community in delivering this project.

We hope that this project will really showcase partnership working and deliver a noticeable increase in resilience to flooding for the communities in the Bishopdale Beck catchment as well as improving the environment for both people and wildlife.

The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust has been working with landowners to create individual farm plans, something which the partner organisations say they are keen to do more of in the Dales.

Tarja Wilson, of Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA), said:

The idea is simple: farmers in the hills can take measures to slow down flood waters, both benefitting their businesses and lowering the risk of homes being flooded downstream.

In Bishopdale farmers are working collaboratively through the Wensleydale Facilitation Fund to consider how they can carry out natural flood management on their holdings.

Natural flood management isn’t a silver bullet which will solve flooding downstream, but it has multiple benefits for farmers, such as improving water quality and reducing flood risk. It can be a genuine win-win, for farmers and the wider community.

The scheme will be developed in close consultation with communities and landowners to ensure interventions complement existing agricultural businesses.

Local famer and landowner Robert Brown said:

It’s great to see investment in the uplands for natural flood management. Previous projects have been very successful and it’s good to see lots of local farmers and landowners getting involved.

Dan Turner, of the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, said:

The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust is really looking forward to working in partnership with the YDNPA and EA on the Bishopdale natural flood management project.

We believe that this could be a real flagship project, delivering natural flood management on a catchment scale while also providing other benefits, such as wildlife, and reducing diffuse pollution.

We have been working closely with farmers in the catchment for many years, so it’s great to once again, work together to creating a more resilient catchment, that’s both profitable, sustainable and working with the natural environment.

The scheme will complement peatland restoration work delivered through Pennine PeatLIFE, an EU LIFE project co-funded by the Environment Agency and water companies.

The project delivery partners, the Yorkshire Peat Partnership, have been working with land owners in Bishopdale to restore upland blanket bog habitat in the area.

These habitats are vital for water storage, with healthy bogs storingg and holding more water and sediment.

The two other areas to get a share of the £501,000 Government funding announced in the 2016 autumn budget for natural flood management schemes in Yorkshire are Brompton Beck, near Northallerton, and Backstones Beck in Ilkley.

The funding was part of a national £15million NFM programme which, in addition to delivering flood risk reduction and environmental enhancements, aims to contribute to the growing evidence base for NFM.