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Norfolk County Council’s Cabinet has this morning agreed Option C as the preferred route for the Norwich Western Link.
As mentioned previously, we recommended Option C as the best overall solution and preferred route for the new link road between the A47 and Broadland Northway (formerly the NDR) as it balances all of the issues the project needs to address. It limits environmental impacts, has a high cost-to-benefit ratio, reduces congestion and rat-running on existing roads, minimises the impact on communities and properties, and received considerable support through our recent consultation.
This is a major milestone for the project and, while there is still much work to be done, having a preferred route brings us a step closer to starting work to construct the Norwich Western Link in late 2022 and opening the road to traffic in early 2025, subject to securing funding and completing necessary statutory processes.
Further surveys and design work will now be carried out to develop the preferred route. This will include the development of complementary measures to mitigate environmental impacts, encourage walking, cycling and public transport use, and limit the amount, speed and type of vehicles using the existing road network in the area where appropriate.
Alongside our work to identify a preferred route, we have also put together a Strategic Outline Business Case for the project which councillors on our Cabinet also approved today. We intend for this to be submitted to the Department for Transport by the end of the month, which will start the process required to secure funding for the Norwich Western Link from the government. We have an excellent case for the need for the road and strong support from the public, the business community, emergency services, local councils and MPs, so we’re very hopeful we’ll be successful.
We’ll continue to let you know when there are significant updates about the project, and we’ll keep the Norwich Western Link pages of the County Council website updated, which you can find at www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl . There will also be a further public consultation on the preferred route before we submit our planning application.
We have today (Friday 5 July) published a preferred route recommendation for the Norwich Western Link.
The County Council wants to provide a higher standard connection between the western end of Broadland Northway (formerly the NDR) and the A47 to significantly improve travel between these two major roads. There is strong support from the public, the business community, emergency services, local councils and MPs for a link road to be created, which is needed to tackle traffic congestion, rat-running and delays to journeys on minor roads to the west of Norwich.
Late last year, the County Council published a shortlist of four potential road options for the Norwich Western Link and carried out a public consultation on these options between November 2018 and January 2019.
Having considered the consultation responses alongside other crucial information, such as transport benefits, environmental effects, value for money and impacts on local communities, we have recommended Option C , a new 3.9 mile dual carriageway road, as the best overall solution and preferred route for the Norwich Western Link.
Option C would link from the roundabout at the western end of Broadland Northway and extend for around 350 metres along the A1067 Fakenham Road before turning in a south-westerly direction via a new junction. The road would cross the River Wensum on a viaduct and then continue at or near ground level for the remainder of its length. It would link to the A47 via a new junction at Wood Lane (B1535), which forms part of Highways England’s plan to dual the A47 between North Tuddenham and Easton. Please see the map below which shows the route.
We have recommended Option C as the preferred route as it balances all of the issues that the project needs to address, including limiting environmental impacts, having a high cost-to-benefit ratio, reducing congestion and rat-running on existing roads, minimising the impact on communities and properties, and receiving considerable support through our recent consultation.
We’re committed to creating this road in an environmentally responsible way and are aiming to achieve ‘biodiversity net gain’ by, for example, creating new habitats and including features such as green bridges. And one of the Norwich Western Link’s project objectives is to encourage people to shift the way they travel to use more sustainable forms of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport. Taking traffic off the existing road network will help with this, but we’ll also work to develop complementary transport measures that will support this ambition once the preferred route has been agreed.
It’s important to say that at this stage the preferred route is only a recommendation. Councillors on the County Council’s Cabinet will meet on Monday 15 July to discuss the contents of the report and will be asked to agree a preferred route for the Norwich Western Link. We’ll let you know the outcome of this meeting and next steps for the project on 15 July.
You can read the full report on the Norwich Western Link that our councillors are considering at the Cabinet meeting, as well as further information such as questions and answers, on our website at www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl .
We realise we've gone a bit quiet with the updates since our public consultation on four shortlisted options for a Norwich Western Link closed in January this year. Since then, we've been carrying out - and continue to carry out - a great deal of work with the aim of identifying a preferred route.
Analysing the 1,900 responses we received to the consultation is one of the elements that will inform this decision but there are a lot of other very important factors we need to consider too, including: the results from ecological surveys and environmental information; the routes' effectiveness at improving traffic issues in the area and meeting the other project objectives; and costs and the ratio of those costs to the benefits they are likely to create.
As mentioned, we still have work to do so we don't have a preferred route yet. However, we're planning to provide a report for a preferred route to councillors in Norfolk County Council's Cabinet in July. The primary reason for this timing is so that we can take account of information from ecological surveys we've been carrying out and that have to happen at a certain time of year due to the seasonal nature of some species and their activity.
The County Council's Cabinet will consider and be asked to make a decision on a preferred route when it meets on Monday 15 July and a report will be published around a week before this meeting. We'll post another news update in July to make you aware that the report is published and where you can find it.
We appreciate this is a decision that's important for many of you, for a wide variety of reasons, so I hope this update is useful. If you want to find out more about the Norwich Western Link and our work to date in the meantime, there's a lot of information on our website at www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl .
After nearly eight weeks, 14 consultation events (including the final one tomorrow at Honingham) and more than 1,100 responses, our consultation on our four shortlisted route options for a Norwich Western Link will draw to a close this Friday at midnight.
This means you only have three full days left to give us your thoughts, which we'll use to help us identify a preferred route for the Norwich Western Link later this year. You can respond to the consultation by filling in the online survey - please go through all sections of the survey, including each individual option and the options comparison section at the end, and tell us what you think, including any relevant information you think we should consider before deciding on a preferred route.
If you've already responded to the consultation, please tell any friends, relatives or neighbours that you think might be interested and have an opinion on our Norwich Western Link options about the consultation and how they can respond. We try to get the word out through these news updates, social media, community newsletters, newspapers and radio stations, posters in libraries and other things, but sometimes there is no substitute for word of mouth. Thanks very much to those who have helped to spread the word already.
As alluded to above, it's our final consultation event tomorrow at Honingham Village Hall on Dereham Road. This is your last chance to speak to staff involved in the project face to face before the consultation closes, so do drop in to see us any time between 2 and 8pm.
Yes, 20 days have passed since we launched our consultation on the four shortlisted options for a Norwich Western Link and we find ourselves preparing for our final consultation event before Christmas.
This is at Fakenham's Salvation Army Church on Oak Street (NR21 9DY) tomorrow (Friday, 14 December) from 2 to 8pm. We know people are busy at this time of year, with Christmas shopping, parties and nights out competing for your attention, as well as the normal responsibilities of work, school and family. But if you do live in or near Fakenham and have an interest in our route options and what we're planning to do to improve travel between the A47 and Broadland Northway, we'd love to see you at our event tomorrow. Who knows, we might even treat you to an impromptu carol or two. Not sure that's much of an enticement...
We're holding a few events a little further afield this time following feedback from our initial consultation in the summer - the rationale being that people who travel through the area to the west of Norwich are also likely to have a keen interest in the Norwich Western Link. So as well as Fakenham tomorrow, we'll be calling in at Aylsham and Dereham in January, along with holding other events closer to where our shortlisted options are. You can see our full list of consultation events on our website .
We've had a good turnout at our events so far, we're probably averaging about 100 people at each of them. At our event in Taverham this week we were particularly pleased to have a group of students from Taverham High School come along with their teacher. They were a great bunch, really interested in the project, asking lots of questions and letting us know what they thought - you can't ask for much more than that. Thanks to them and their teacher for coming along, it was really lovely to meet you and see that you care about what's going on in your local community. You can read more about their visit on the EDP website here .
We'd love to see more students and young people at our events in the new year - we'd love to see anyone and everyone of course but there is something really nice about getting the younger generation interested in a large-scale project like the Norwich Western Link. This is something that stands to make a big difference to people in the area after all, in the shorter and longer term.
So on that note, if you're a local teacher, parent or involved in your local school community and you'd like to get your students involved in the project as it continues, we'd really like to hear from you. You can contact us on the email address at the bottom of the 'Have your say' web page on our website and we'll get back to you.
A final reminder before I wrap this up like a Christmas present - if you haven't done so already, please don't forget to respond to the current consultation on our four Norwich Western Link options via www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl . And please spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested in telling us what they think. All the responses to the consultation will be considered when we're deciding on a preferred route for the Norwich Western Link, so it's really important to get involved now.
We have four Norwich Western Link consultation events next week, so lots of opportunities to view details of our four potential route options, ask any questions and respond to the consultation in person.
Come and see us at...
- Easton Village Hall, Marlingford Road, Easton, NR9 5AD on Monday 10 December (2 - 8pm)- Taverham Village Hall, Sandy Lane, Taverham, NR8 6JR on Tuesday 11 December (12 - 6pm)- the Hall for All, Weston Longville, Church Street, NR9 5JU on Wednesday 12 December (2 - 8pm)- the Salvation Army Church, 16 Oak Street, Fakenham, NR21 9DY on Friday 14 December (2 - 8pm)
We have more events to come but these are our last events in December, so if you're keen to talk to us this month, make sure you get one of these dates in your diary.
Thanks to everyone who's come along to an event so far, it's been really good to talk to you all. We even had a girl come along to our event in Hockering who, if I remember correctly, was eight and three quarters and who asked us lots of great questions about the Norwich Western Link and what we all did on the project. It was so lovely to see someone so young have the interest and confidence to talk to us about this!
Thanks also to the 400+ of you who have responded to the consultation already, most of you via our online survey which you can find via www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl . If you haven't responded yet, you've got till Friday 18 January so there's still time - just don't forget in a mince pie and mulled wine daze!
We have a busy second week of the consultation - and first week of December - planned with three events taking place where you can look through information on our route options, ask any questions you have and respond to the consultation in person.
We're at Drayton Village Hall (Pond Lane, NR8 6PP) on Monday from 2 to 8pm, The Forum in Norwich city centre (NR2 1TF) on Tuesday from 12 to 5pm and Hockering Village Hall (Heath Road, NR20 3HY) on Wednesday (2 - 8pm).
We still have plenty more consultation events to come in December and January, so you won't have lost your chance if you can't make it to any of these. And you can of course look through all the consultation information and respond online via www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl , where you can also find details of all upcoming consultation events.
Thanks to everyone who came to our event in Ringland this week, there were around 100 of you all told and we hope you found it helpful.
We're gearing up for our first consultation event tomorrow in Ringland and we're hoping to see lots of people there.
Here are the precise details - we'll be at Ringland Village Hall on The Street (NR8 6JA) between 2 and 8pm tomorrow (Wednesday 28 November). You can come and see us at any point between these times to look through information on our route options, ask any questions you have and respond to the consultation in person.
If you can't make it to the event tomorrow, we have 13 other consultation events in the diary between now and mid-January (when the consultation closes) so there'll be lots of opportunities to come and tell us what you think.
And of course you can look through all the consultation information and respond online via www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl .
Our Norwich Western Link consultation is now open! This is your chance to tell us what you think of our four potential route options to to connect the A47 to Broadland Northway (formerly the Northern Distributor Road), which are designed to improve travel between these two major roads and tackle transport problems in the area.
We've published additional information about the options to coincide with the consultation launching, so please have a good look through all of this and then give us your views via www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl . The additional information includes information on environmental considerations and traffic modelling information – how each of the routes is likely to affect levels of traffic on other roads - as well as an artist's impression to give people an indication of how a viaduct over the River Wensum could look.
You can also find information about our 14 public consultation events via this link (click on the 'Have your say' section to see the full list). The events will give you the opportunity to speak to staff involved in the project, view details on the options and respond in person. The first of our events is in Ringland this Wednesday, so we hope to see some of you there.
As ever, and particularly now the consultation is live, please help us spread the word about it by telling friends, family, neighbours etc, sharing our posts on Facebook and Twitter and anything else you can think of. We really do want everyone who may want to give us their views to have the chance, and we know that not everyone reads the local newspaper, listens to the radio or is on social media.
In case you're wondering why we're carrying out this consultation, let me tell you - the responses will help us identify a preferred option for the Norwich Western Link in spring 2019, so this an important stage of the project. Thanks in advance for taking the time to give us your views.