Norwich No N25 Campaign

April 2009: Objections to NDR-based development
On 2 March, the Greater Norwich Development Partnership launched a public consultation on their future growth plans for Norwich (deadline is 24 April deadline extended to 12 June).  The Councils are stuffing a substantial amount of development (10,000 new dwellings to 2026) in what they term a “Growth Triangle) beyond north-east Norwich either side of a NDR.  See leaflet (.pdf) for map showing growth plans. The idea of calling the zone a growth triangle is a thinly disguised attempt to boost the case for and funding prospects of an outer northern development road.

Having claimed that a NDR would reduce traffic in north Norwich, a review of County’s NDR Business Case shows that in fact traffic on radial roads in NE Norwich would more than double in the morning rush hour: chart showing % increase reproduced below..

Our leaflet (.pdf) says how you can object.

...Apparently people are finding it difficult to get access to the online consultation form (at http://tinyurl.com/gndp-online-cons if you want to try) so you might want to do it the old fashioned way by writing a letter of objection to

Greater Norwich Development Partnership
Thorpe Lodge
1 Yarmouth Road
Norwich
NR7 0DU

and heading your letter "Joint Core Strategy for Broadland, Norwich and South Norfolk".  If you need to ring GNDP for advice about submitting an objection, the number is 01603 430484.


% increase in morning rush hour traffic with NDR - from review of Norfolk CC's Business Case

30 March 2009: Ploy to start NDR under guise of separate Postwick Hub scheme rumbled by DfT
Up until now, Norfolk County Council has been working under the assumption that Government approval for the Postwick Hub (the first stage of a NDR) and the NDR would be a walkover. However, the Department for Transport has expressed doubt over both schemes in a letter to Norfolk County Council dated 27 March in which they make £21 million of funding for Postwick Hub conditional on the NDR gaining Programme Entry (in effect approval in principle for NDR funding). Given the poor quality of the NDR Business Case and unworkable Postwick Hub design, Norfolk County Council will struggle to submit an amended version for the DfT to assess by September. Read the DfT’s letter and an analysis of the letter by the national transport journal Local Transport Today.

4 March 2009: Postwick Hub planning application
Norfolk County Council has applied to Broadland District Council for planning permission for Postwick Hub, the first stage of a Norwich Northern Development Route, in the guise of an access road to Broadland Gate, a business park located inside the ‘Hub’.  Read our accompanying press release for more information. The Highways Agency has since objected to the design of Postwick Hub.

19 February 2009: Presentation on growth & transport proposals to national, regional and county govt.
NNTAG (Norfolk & Norwich Transport Action Group)/CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) Norfolk gave an earlier version of this presentation based on our findings to Department for Transport (DfT) officials in December 2008. The DfT considered we had a case to answer and asked Norfolk County Council to arrange a meeting.  On 19 February, we gave the presentation to Norfolk County Council, DfT,Go-East and EERA officials.  In summary our case is:

• the scale of growth planned for Norwich offers an opportunity to develop a high quality public transport system, with comprehensive walking and cycling networks.
• the pattern of growth planned for Norwich focuses on a SW – NE axis (strategic employment to SW and strategic housing to NE). It would be better served by an improved public transport system that connects the different parts of the city, than by an outer orbital road running through open countryside north of Norwich

February 2009
NNTAG (Norfolk & Norwich Transport Action Group)/CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) Norfolk commissioned Keith Buchan, transport consultant, MTRU, to review aspects of the NDR Business Case.  Our consultant concludes that the NDR:

• significantly increases carbon emissions
• supports car dependency, with over 90% of commuting by car in the associated new development.
• the public transport option is costly (£10m) but hardly makes any difference to public transport use, attracting just one extra passenger compared to Do-Minimum.

 Our consultant recommends that the Department for Transport rejects the County’s Business Case.  See presentation and Interim Note for more detail.

 Norfolk County Council has had to go away and work on preparing a revised report.  Despite wasting upwards of £10 million of public money on developing a NDR scheme in the last ten years, the County comes up with a duff Business Case.

• growth planned for east/NE Norwich can be served by:

1. implementing highways works outlined in Broadland Local Plan 2006 (on-line improvements to Postwick junction, Broadland Business park Link Road, Blue Boar Lane orbital road) to unlock land allocated for employment and housing;
2. new dedicated bus services for east/NE Norwich area, linking eco-town at Rackheath to Broadland Business Park and communities in between;  
3. new and upgraded rail infrastructure/services between Rackheath and Broadland Business Park.

• NDR Business Case is seriously flawed as described in earlier news items.
• the design of Postwick Hub, the first stage of a NDR would force drivers to travel a circuitous route.

1st February 2009
NNTAG (Norfolk & Norwich Transport Action Group)/CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) Norfolk have published a joint review of Norfolk County Council’s NDR Business Case submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT) last July.  Our joint analysis show the document to be flawed and incomplete. For example, the traffic figures for the Norwich road network in the Opening Year (2012) of a NDR have been miscalculated due to a mathematical error.   When we worked out the figures using the normally accepted method, they showed bigger traffic increases and smaller traffic reductions than stated by the County. Norfolk officials accept that out revised calculations are correct

A NDR would increase traffic on a large number of roads. This is because motorists are using radial and other main roads in the City to access the NDR.   Overall, the NDR would reduce traffic flows by just 1.68% in the morning peak hour and increase traffic by 0.04% in the evening peak. This is a long way from the County’s claim that a NDR would reduce traffic and congestion in north Norwich.  At a cost of £127 million, these marginal traffic changes represent poor value for money.

September 2008:  NDR carbon footprint condemned, Major Scheme Business Case submitted
After a relatively quiet summer it looks like things are starting to happen again.  For one thing the NDR has just come 4th in a national top 10 of the worst proposed road schemes in terms of annual carbon emissions at 24,631 tonnes of CO₂ per year.  Actually, that's just the estimate (their official one, not ours!) for the first year after opening, well before the additional induced traffic will have reached its peak.  To say nothing of the massive amount of energy that would be used (and hence release a corresponding amount of CO₂) in building the thing.

Meanwhile Norfolk Council, seemingly unperturbed by this have submitted their Major Scheme Business Case to the Department for Transport.  This is a document where, in order to receive funding, they have to show what good value for money their scheme is.  Of course, what costs and benefits get counted are probably not the same as the ones that you and I would think were important, but remember we're dealing here with the wacky and anachronistic (some would say antediluvian - I like that word - it literally means "before the flood") world of road planners' economics.  And on that topic, we now urgently need to find the money to pay a n independent consultant to respond to the Business Case, because, in spite of the fact that there's all kinds of bits missing from it, Government doesn't take nearly so much notice when you or I point it out as when someone expensive does.  Cheques payable to "N.N.T.A.G." (that's the Norfolk and Norwich Transport Action Group, who look after our meagre finances for us) to the address at the bottom of the page please 8-).  Ta!

February 2008: Thanks!!!
Thanks to everyone who responded to the Greater Norwich Development Partnership consultation telling them that urban sprawl that generates demand and funding for an NDR isn't an acceptable planning policy.  And to the many (well, as a proportion of those who visited it...) supportive people we met visiting the GNDP's consultation exhibition.  If any of you out there are wondering what to do next, I suggest giving Denise a ring on the number above to see if you can get along to one of our meetings to help us plan the next steps.  Or, if you live near the proposed NDR route, you could think about setting up your own local resistance group.  Or just make as much noise as possible about it in the press, and to your councillors and MPs.  If you're seeking support/advice for your own anti-NDR efforts, please get in touch and if we can help, we will.

January 2008:  Norfolk Council investigates itself!
One Norfolk County Council department is now investigating another after anti-road campaigners put in a complaint about their attempt to sidestep the competitive tendering process for the NDR contract (see September '07 item below).  Their Head of Democratic Services and Scrutiny Department says he is treating it as a "Level 3" matter, which is the most serious rating he can give it.  Of course, we have to wonder whether being investigated by another department is really likely to result in significant censure of or action against the Transportation Department, but the fact of an investigation itself should help to call into question for potential funders of the road the integrity and competence of that department.

Meanwhile, Norfolk's Cabinet Member for Transport and his Director of Transport have been reported squealing and whining in the pages of the local press, but have finally had to accept a delay to their plans variously estimated at between 6 months (their estimate) and 2 years (everyone else's).  Any delay is good news for us because we have good reasons to expect support for the road from the City Council to dwindle as it approaches transition to a Unitary Authority (notably that it would become liable for a part of the cost of the road if the paperwork were not yet completed by the time the transition happens).

September 2007: Government intervenes to block Norfolk Council "cronyism"
Norfolk County Council's proposal to hand a £106.5m contract to build an NDR to May Gurney, a developer with whom they've spent may years cultivating a relationship as a "Strategic Partner" (SP), has been blocked by the Department of Transport on the advice of Government lawyers, who say it must go through the proper competitive tendering process.  The County's transportation officers appear to have gone a step too far in trying to satisfy their political masters' aims to give the contract to their buddies and in so doing cut short the time available to raise objections to the project.  Rather than take independent advice, they chose to consult an arm of the Council's other SP, Mott Macdonald, already heavily involved in the development of plans for an NDR and, hence, with an obvious vested interest..  All very cosy.  Too cosy even for the Government, who, let's face it, aren't exactly famous for keeping the roadbuilders under control.  But this time it seems to have been worth our while drawing their attention to it.

Why do we care whether the road has to go to competitive tender, when we just want them to see sense and ditch the thing altogether?  Well, for one thing, it will take longer, and the longer the process takes, the more likely the road is to get scuppered by such things as the development of policy on climate change and the Greater Norwich Unitary Authority bid.  That, and the fact that Norfolk's Director of Transportation, Mike Jackson, now has serious amounts of egg on his face.  He's been a vigorous proponent of the road and his department's role in this latest affair does much to expose his lack of impartiality.  We reckon it leaves his position pretty untenable and that he ought to resign.  But if he doesn't, at least this should go a long way to undermining his credibility with some of those he's trying to persuade to fund the road.

July 2007: Norfolk Council propose to award NDR contract without competitive tender
See press release: "County’s Plan for £106.5 Million NDR Contract is Unacceptable Say ‘No to NDR’ Group"

May 2007: Council exhibitions backfire
The County Council's series of exhibitions about the proposed NDR over the end of April and beginning of May backfired on them somewhat, exposing the increasing strength of feeling against the road in the villages close to its route and handing a publicity coup to the anti-road campaign.

We followed the exhibition, which provided an excellent opportunity to reach many of those most concerned about the road, through the villages, leafletting outside all of them.  In many of the villages, notably Drayton, Taverham and Rackheath, we discovered a strong consensus among the visitors against the road.  These were some of the best attended exhibitions.

In Drayton the feeling was so strong that it generated a substantial favourable newspaper report ("Multi-million route gets thumbs down", Evening News, 6 April 2007) in which we were a mere sideshow.  A small but spirited demonstration outside the exhibition in the last of the villages (Postwick) got us another excellent report in the Evening News, while a spoof pro-road demo organised by Norwich Rising Tide outside the exhibitions final venue in Norwich City Centre attracted enthusiastic support from the city's youth and further high quality press in the Evening News, the Advertiser and alternative internet media (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/05/369776.html).  Thanks to NRT for their efforts putting this one together.

We're beginning to get a real sense now that more people are starting to understand what this road would really mean for them (usually more traffic and more built development) and are not liking the prospect.  True, there are some who would be in favour of the originally suggested a full route around the north of Norwich from west to east, but that is not what is on the table now - it's the three-quarter route or nothing.  While this campaign continues to be troubled that it represents a threat to the Wensum Valley (where a quarter of the road was dropped) in the longer term future, it's clear that a good many who would have supported a full route agree with us that the road that Norfolk CC are now looking to build is totally barmy.  We reckon this is why the Council still refuses to consult the public on it's proposed route, but just goes on quoting the figure that it succeeded in engineering for a different one.

Anyway, we're looking forward to the prospect of more Council exhibitions in the future to further help our campaign and in the meantime we're encouraging letters to the press to help keep the ball rolling.  So if you feel like putting pen to paper, you could try Evening News Letters, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich NR1 1RE or The Editor, The Advertiser at the same address or eveningnewsletters@archant.co.uk or terry.redhead@achant co.uk (for the Advertiser).


March 2007: Secretary of State accepts Examination Panel's deletion of NDR from East of England Plan - Consultation now closed
The Secretary of State (Ruth Kelly) has published her intended changes to the East of England Plan in December 2006.  These accepted the recommendation of the panel of the Examination in Public that the proposed policy containing the NDR be removed from the plan.  This would mean that the proposal was unsupported at regional level and would very likely be sufficient to force Norfolk Council to drop their proposal.  The Secretary of State's proposed changes were then put out to consultation.  Local groups including the Norfolk and Norwich Transport Action Group (which spawned this campaign) and the Norwich and Norfolk Campaign against Climate Change have made submisiions on a number of the Secretary of State's proposals.  These included

Support for the Secretary of State's acceptance of the Panel recommendation to remove policies NSR1 to NSR6 from the East of England Plan, and in particular the removal of the Norwich Northern Distributor Road, which featured in policy NSR5, and support for her replacement of these policies with a policy that does not include the NDR .

Donations

We're still skint
send a cheque made payable to N.N.T.A.G. to NoNDR, 42-46 Bethel Street, Norwich NR2 1NR.