The London Jazz Festival will get underway this week on Friday November 14th 2008.

This year’s festival promises to be as exiting as ever, featuring the world’s premiere jazz talent performing at the city’s top venues.

Proceedings will begin on Friday with the Jazz on 3 Launch Show, taking place at the refurbished Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.

Highlights at this year’s festival, which will run until November 23rd 2008, include Courtney Pine, Lee Konitz and the seemingly immutable creative force of Herbie Hancock.

Herbie will be playing at the Barbican on November 19th, followed by a gig by Courtney Pine on November 20th.

But if this weren’t enough to encourage people to book tickets and car hire for the London Jazz Festival, there are a host of other prestigious performers set to grace the London stages.

Among them will be Gary Crosby’s Nu Troop, performing at the Spice of Life, and Lee Konitz, appearing at the 606 Club on November 20th.

The end a successful National Tree Week will be celebrated by the planting of a number of new specimens in Lincolnshire.

Some 2,125 trees will be given a new home alongside the Colsterworth junction of the A1. Ash, oak and Scots pine will be among the range of species included in the project which will can be see by motorists in their car hire using the junction.

Tony Sangwine, environmental advisor for the Highways Agency, said: “National Tree Week comes at the end of a wonderful display of autumn colour on our busy highway network. It reminds us of the vital role that trees have to play in the sustainability of our transport links.

“They provide a rich habitat for wildlife, filter polluted air, stabilise the soil, reduce the impact of stormwater run-off and help to integrate roads with their surrounding landscape.”

This latest tranche will see the Highways Agency, which is conducting the work, plant its 52 millionth tree. The agency was formed in 1994 and continues the tree planting work that the former Ministry of Transport began in 1958.

A series of road improvement projects is targeting an accident-prone junction in the Greater Manchester area to benefit road users in their car hire.

The Highways Agency is to carry out several projects on the M60 Junction 12 Eccles Interchange.

The junction sees the M60, M62 and M602 motorways converge and has been the site of over 70 accidents in the last five years.

Highways Agency project manager John Mather said: “There is a history of incidents at the site, including lorries turning over on the bends. This work will help to address such problems.

“It is something we need to do as we are committed to improving safety on the network. It is straight-forward but essential work that should benefit motorists and make their journeys safer.”

The first phase on the link road between the M62 (Eastbound) and M60 anti-clockwise carriageway (Southbound) has been completed, with the next phase due to begin on December 1st.

All the improvement work is scheduled to be completed by March 2009 and will cost approximately £500,000.

Initial preparations for the major project to widen two sections of the M25 are underway.

According to the Highways Agency, two sections of the road which are to be altered will see vegetation clearance work carried out from December 8th.

The first session will see work conducted between junctions 16 and 17, in addition to areas between junction 27 and the A113 Passingford Road.

After a break for the Christmas period, the work will continue into January on both carriageways between junctions 16 and 18, plus the section between junctions 27 and 29.

The London orbital road is to undergo the widening work itself later in 2009, with the section between junctions 16 and 23 to start in the spring.

Following this, the section between junctions 27 and 30 will be widened in the summer.

Further information will be made available to the public around the start of next year.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has revealed the extent of drink driving in the country.

At the launch of the annual Christmas anti-drink driving campaign, the PSNI said that more than 3,800 people have been caught committing the offence so far this year.

Speaking at the campaign’s launch in Belfast on Thursday, assistant chief constable Roy Toner said: “During our winter campaign last year, 629 people were arrested for drink driving.

“Each of these drink drivers is a potential killer. I am appealing for all motorists to consider the consequences of their actions.”

At the core of this year’s seasonal initiative is the message that drink drivers caught over the Christmas period will be treated like any other criminal.

The Think! campaign, which co-ordinates all local policing efforts to increase road safety, has run a series of hard-hitting adverts on television, along with material in pubs, on radio and online.

Sussex Police have announced the results from the first phase of their pre-Christmas campaign to reduce driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

In the first two weeks of the annual crackdown, officers arrested 90 motorists who contravened the law by either failing or refusing to provide a specimen, producing a positive specimen or driving while unfit.

The effort coincides with the national Think! initiative over the Christmas period, launched on December 1st, which aims to make roads safer for responsible drivers in their car hire and pedestrians across the nation.

Superintendent Steve Barry said: “We normally launch our drink/drugs driving campaign to coincide with the national operation, but this year we started two weeks early.

“The main reason for this is because statistics show that there is an increase in serious and fatal road collisions involving drink and/or drugs in the month of November.”

Officers stopped and breathalysed 1,300 drivers in the period from November 17th and urge anyone with information about individuals using roads while illegally under the influence of drink or drugs to contact Crimestoppers immediately.