PROTESTS are growing over plans to widen the M6 or build a new motorway through acres of countryside.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) described plans to cut a swathe through Staffordshire and Cheshire as a "countryside-munching monster".

The criticism follows the first of two seminars by the Highways Agency on Tuesday which outlined the plans.

Paul Hamblin, from CPRE, said: "The third way is to better manage traffic without destroying the countryside with new road building.

The proposed M6 Expressway would run from Junction 1a north of Birmingham to just north of Junction 19 in north Cheshire.

A second meeting is scheduled for Friday at Sandbach in Cheshire.