News on NWL Initial Views

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 .