Highways England engages with public and primary school pupils

Highways England recently visited pupils at the Birdlip Primary School in Gloucestershire at an event which educated staff, students, and their parents on the progression of plans to improve journeys on the A417 between Brockworth Bypass and Cowley Roundabout.

Highways England Traffic Officers made the most recent visit as part of a wider community programme to advertise the consultation process of the highway plans, allowing pupils at the local school to use a driving simulator and take part in a bridge building session to encourage students to take up STEM subjects.

The Highways England Senior Project Manager, Mike Goddard stated: “The consultation we are currently running is an important step before submitting a planning application.

“The upgrade will bring many benefits including helping to boost growth and prosperity by making journeys more reliable and offering more predictable journey times; it will also improve safety for drivers and reduce air pollution from queuing traffic.

“Children and young people will benefit from these improvements too and their eagerness to know more about road development and our work in this area is impressive.

The Class Teacher, Laura Davis added: “This was a wonderful opportunity to study the A417 Missing Link in depth. The children engaged with the interactive simulators to find out exactly where the new road will go and how it will look. The team took the time to answer all the questions fully, in a way that was relevant to the children, the parents and the staff who turned up.”

The A417 Missing Link improvement scheme will see to the upgrading of the final three miles of highway to dual carriageway standard and forms part of the Government’s £15Bn road investment programme, with the consultation period coming to an official end on 8^th November 2019.

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