Norfolk County Council has announced that it has withdrawn its planning application for the £274m Norwich Western Link Road project after being unable to satisfy Natural England on how it will conserve bat populations in the area.
Graham Plant, council cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure, announced the decision to withdraw the application yesterday (21 January).
He said that in March last year, “days before [Norfolk County Council’s] planning application was due to be submitted, it became clear that Natural England’s position had changed and we had a significant impediment to delivering the proposed Norwich Western Link”.
Plant said that in the 10 months since, the council has struggled to find a viable solution that would allow the project to proceed, despite extensive efforts to engage with both Natural England and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
He added that “serious efforts to find a solution have unfortunately not provided a way forward”.
Ferrovial UK was awarded a £107m contract in June 2021 to design and build the road.
The link road aims to alleviate traffic congestion to the west of Norwich with a 6.2km dual carriageway. An outline business case was approved by the Department for Transport (DfT) in October 2023, when the government committed to paying for 80 per cent of the scheme.
Ferrovial declined to comment when asked by Construction News yesterday if it had halted work.
But speaking to CN last year, its managing director Karl Goose singled out the Norwich road scheme as a project that aligns with Ferrovial’s strategy of pursuing projects in the £100m range.
Goose said that Ferrovial had been in the early contractor involvement phase of a two-stage contract since 2022, though he noted at the time that further progress was “subject to planning approval”.
Natural England’s objection related to the damage the road will cause to the rare barbastelle bats in the area, according to CN’s sister title New Civil Engineer.
James Marshall, Natural England deputy director for Norfolk and Suffolk, said: “The proposed route for the Norwich Western Link road would destroy one of the largest remaining populations in the UK.
“We could not see how the proposed road would not destroy the bats’ habitat even if there was mitigation in place.”
But Plant said it was “disappointing” that responses last month from Natural England and its parent government body DEFRA did not answer “specific questions which we asked”.
He added that the council will write to Natural England again “hoping to get answers to our unanswered questions but at present, we have exhausted all our options in relation to this”.
Following this stalemate, the council decided to withdraw the current planning application to enable more focused discussions with the DfT on the future of the Norwich Western Link.
“We have written to DfT ministers this week to stress that the need to deliver a transport intervention in this area, to tackle existing transport issues and support planned growth, has not changed,” Plant said.
He added that the Norwich Western Link “remains a priority project for this council”.
A DfT spokesperson told CN: “We are committed to improving transport across the country, including Norwich, to boost growth and opportunity.
“We will continue to work with Norfolk County Council on measures to improve congestion.”
Additional reporting by Ben Vogel
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Rob Hakimian