The £242 million investment includes improvements to the A57 on the Greater Manchester side – featuring new dual and single carriageways between the M67 and Woolley Bridge. There are also other important improvements along the route with safety and technology improvements either side of Woodhead Pass and a major overhaul of Westwood roundabout in South Yorkshire where the A616 meets the A61.

The consultation started on 12 February 2018 and will close on Sunday 25 March, with a series of public consultation events planned and a variety of other ways for people to get involved – including by email, post and online.

This is one of 3 major scheme milestones which will take place in the North West in the 6 months to June.

The upgrades are funded by the Government’s £15 billion investment in motorways and main A roads and being delivered by Highways England.

Highways England chief executive Jim O’Sullivan said:

This upgrade is further evidence of Highways England continuing to deliver the major infrastructure which benefits the North West. It’s important that we take all opinions into account so I urge anyone with an interest to make their views known.

Another 2 schemes in the North West will reach key milestones before June. Preliminary work on the M62 junction 10 to junction 12 smart motorway scheme will begin in March. This scheme which links the M6 near Warrington (junction 10) to the M60 near Eccles (junction 12) will add around 10 additional lane miles to the network, increasing capacity, and introduce new technology to tackle congestion and keep drivers informed.

The public will also have the opportunity to find out more about the A585 Windy Harbour scheme near Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire. Consultation will take place in March on the proposed bypass of the existing A585 at Little Singleton, improving journey times and safety along this route.

Nationwide, almost 40 projects will hit milestones over the same period, including 7 schemes starting construction and 4 improvements opening to traffic, adding much needed extra capacity to some of the country’s busiest roads and improving journeys for millions of drivers. Others will hit crucial points – including public consultations that will help shape the proposals, and route announcements.

April will mark 3 years since Highways England embarked on delivering the Government’s Road Investment Strategy, the biggest investment in the country’s major roads since the 1970s.

The schemes reaching milestones in the first half of this year will join the 18 major projects that have already opened to traffic since April 2015. A further 17 are presently in construction. In the North West the new A556 Knutsford to Bowdon bypass opened in March 2017, linking the M56 and the M6. The old road – now the B5569 – has been handed over to Cheshire East Council and includes improved facilities for pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders.

Consultation events for the Trans-Pennine upgrades are being staged across both sides of the Pennines and details can be found on the scheme webpage.

As well as the public exhibitions, paper response forms and consultation brochures will be available at locations open to the public from 12 February and can be handed in at these events or sent to the freepost address provided on the form. Further information about the proposals and full details of the deposit locations, which include some local post offices and libraries, are available on the consultation page.

Anyone who wants more information or to give their views on the scheme can also email the project team at: Trans_Pennine_Scheme@highwaysengland.co.uk or call 0300 123 5000, Highways England’s customer care centre.

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.

LIZ COPPER

Liz Copper is a BBC journalist who has worked as a producer and reporter for more than 20 years. She has extensive experience making requests under the Freedom of Information Act. She is a qualified barrister and a member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and the Denning Society. Liz is a volunteer for the charity Sight Support Derbyshire.

JOHN WOOD

John Wood joined Herbert Smith, now Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, the city and international law firm in 1972 and was a partner from 1982 to 2007. He was a legal board member of the Charity Commission from 2008 to 2014, its interim chair in 2012, and continued as a consultant to the Commission and a member of high level board committees until 2017. He also holds a Prime Ministerial appointment as an independent member of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) to which he was appointed in 2015. The role of the Committee is to provide independent advice to the Prime Minister and Ministers on the application of the government’s Business Appointment Rules. It is a five year appointment with a time commitment of approximately one to two days per month and carries an honorarium of £3000 per annum. He has an interest in the development of early twentieth century journalism, literature and print culture and has conducted academic research in this field.

PETER GOODERHAM

Peter Gooderham is a former British diplomat, with a career in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office spanning almost 30 years. His responsibilities during his time in the FCO included serving as the UK Permanent Representative to the UN, WTO and other international organisations in Geneva (from 2008-2012), and as Director for the Middle East and North Africa (from 2004-2007). Prior to his diplomatic career Peter was an academic, with a PhD from Bristol University in modern Russian history and research fellowships at Essex and Birmingham Universities. Since retiring from the FCO in 2013, Peter has been Director of the International Chamber of Commerce (UK), and has worked as a member of the Senior Directing Staff at the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS).

LADY MOIRA ANDREWS

With over 30 years’ experience of the public, private, regulatory and charitable sectors, Moira Andrews’ early career was in private practice as a solicitor in Scotland and the City of London. She became a government legal adviser in 1995, spending three years at the then Department of Trade & Industry before joining the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1998. From 2006 to 2009, she was seconded to the Crown Prosecution Service as Head of International. On leaving government in 2011, she was appointed General Counsel to a business intelligence and strategic advisory consultancy before setting up her own specialist legal practice in 2013. As a government legal adviser and as General Counsel, she was responsible for information management and security, as well as wider legal, governance and risk issues. She currently pursues a range of business, government, academic and charitable interests including: Director of Praetor Legal; member of the Council of ADS, a major UK trade association for UK companies in the aerospace, defence, security and space sectors; Visiting Research Fellow, King’s College London; member, the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace; and Chairman of Trustees of Cairn, a charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse.

The role is not remunerated and these appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Moira Andrews, Liz Copper, Peter Gooderham and John Wood have declared no such political activity.

HUGH BULLOCK

Hugh Bullock has been Chairman of Gerald Eve LLP since 2015 and is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute. He is currently a Member of the Mayor of London’s Homes for Londoners Board, Adviser to the Westminster Property Association and a Member of the Cambridge University Land Economy Advisory Board. Other activities include supporting the University of Crete. His former roles include: Member of the Board of Trustees of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA); Member of the Property Advisory Group of The Passage; Commissioner on the Mayor of London’s West End Commission; Chairman of London First’s Planning and Development Advisory Forum; Member of the Mayor of London’s London Electricity High-Level Working Group; Member of the London Regional Council of the CBI; and Visiting Lecturer to the University of Reading.

MARK URBAN

Mark Urban is the Diplomatic and Defence Editor for BBC 2’s Newsnight and has covered diplomatic and defence matters for more than 20 years at the BBC. His major stories have included: the 1990 invasions of Iraq and subsequent Desert Storm campaign; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the Oslo peace process in the Middle East; the wars that broke out in the former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s as well as the diplomacy that stopped them; the second Palestinian Intifada; 9/11 and its aftermath; the Coalition campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the Arab Spring. Before joining the BBC as a reporter he was Defence Correspondent for The Independent newspaper for four years, covering the end of the Cold War and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mark Urban is also well known as a military historian, with several best selling books to his credit. These have included ‘Rifles’, about the Napoleonic Wars, ‘Generals’ an exploration of the British Army’s leadership since its foundation in 1688, and titles concerning more recent history such as ‘Task Force Black’ that dealt with special operations during the Iraq campaign. Mark Urban became a Trustee for the Royal Armouries in September 2012.

ANDREW FIGGURES

Andrew Figgures was educated at Loughborough Grammar School, Welbeck College and St Catharine’s College Cambridge where he read Engineering. He was commissioned from Sandhurst into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He has served in Germany and the United Kingdom and on operations in Northern Ireland, the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and Iraq in 2003-4 where he was Senior British Military Representative and deputy to the US Commander. He has been on the directing staff at the Royal Military College of Science responsible for the instruction of Surveillance, Target Acquistion, Aerial Vehicles’ Guided Weapons and Emerging Technology. In 2004 he became Technical Director of the Defence Procurement Agency and Defence Logistic Organisation, Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Army Board. On promotion to Lieutenant General In 2006 he became Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff responsible for the Defence Equipment Plan for all three services. On leaving the Army he in 2010 was appointed and held the position of Chief Executive of the British Transport Police Authority with the responsibility for policing the railways in Great Britain until 2016.

These roles are not remunerated and these appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Hugh Bullock, Mark Urban and Andrew Figgures have declared no such political activity.

Carol is a leading voice in consumer and regulatory policy and currently runs her own business providing support and advice to others on such matters.

She was previously Chair of the Board of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and is currently the non-executive Chair of the Claims Management Regulation Unit for the Ministry of Justice. Carol holds other non-executive appointments for Trustmark (the Government-endorsed quality scheme) and is a Warden of the Birmingham Assay Officer. She is also an Independent Advisory Member for the Commission for Local Administration in England (the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman).

In September 2015, Carol led an Independent Review into the regulation of claims management companies, commissioned jointly by HM Treasury and the Ministry of Justice. She has also previously held roles that include Senior Ombudsman at the Office for Legal Complaints, a member of the Legal Services Board Consumer Panel, Operations Director at the Office of Fair Trading, Director of Service Improvement at the Local Better Regulation Office, and national operations manager for Consumer Direct, where she was involved in the establishment of the national consumer advice helpline on behalf of Government.

Carol was awarded an MBE in June 2016 in recognition of her services to consumers and better regulation and is a Fellow of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, an honour bestowed on her by her peers in 2009, in recognition of her contribution to the profession.

The role is remunerated at £295 per day and this appointment is made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Carol Brady has declared no such political activity.

DR ASHOK ROY

Dr Ashok Roy, FSA is a scientist and a leading analytical specialist in the material history of works of art, particularly Old Master paintings. His career has been in museum science from 1977 when he was appointed to the National Gallery’s Scientific Department, of which he became Director in 1990. He was later appointed Director of Collections at the National Gallery from where he retired in 2016. He remains particularly interested in developing interdisciplinary study of works of art with curators and conservators with a view of presenting to a broad public the interest and value of understanding and preserving collections through material knowledge. To this end he has organised a number of exhibitions devoted to these subjects and published and lectured extensively in Britain and abroad. He is committed to promoting the widest variety of free public access to the national collections, and ensuring that the results of research on collections are made available to visitors both physical and virtual. He believes that presenting the materials and making of works of art provides a powerful way of engaging new publics particularly younger visitors. He is also interested in the importance of sustainability of museums as public institutions.

TIMOTHY SCHRODER

Timothy Schroder is a historian and lecturer on the history of silver and goldsmiths’ work. Previous roles include head of silver at Christie’s, Curator of Decorative Arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Consultant Curator at the V&A. In addition to being a trustee of the Wallace Collection, he is a past Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, a member of the Fabric Commission of Westminster Abbey and chairman of the Prostate Cancer Research Centre. His current area of research is the goldsmiths’ work of Henry VIII, which he will publish in 2020 to mark the 500th anniversary of the Field of Cloth of Gold, the celebrated meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I of France in 1520.

KATE DE ROTHSCHILD

Kate de Rothschild Agius will continue to use her extensive knowledge of the art world and fund raising when she is re-appointed as a Trustee of the Wallace Collection. During the past five years she has been a constant advocate and ambassador for the museum and has raised money for them from many different sources. Kate was formerly Chairman of the Patrons of the British Museum and is now Chairman of the Patrons of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. These roles mean that she is very aware of the skills needed to approach and successfully interact with people when raising money. She is on the board of Exbury Gardens, the Rothschild family garden, now in a charitable trust, in Hampshire which is open to the public (with 80,000 visitors a year) and is involved in all aspects of running this visitor attraction. Kate has spent many years in the art world and has a particular interest in the art on display at the Wallace. She can talk knowledgeably about it to the visitors and hopefully inspire them to share her enthusiasm for the collection.

The role is not remunerated and these appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Dr Ashok Roy, Kate de Rothschild-Agius and Tim Schroder have declared no such political activity.