News on NWL Initial Views

The consultation into transport issues to the west of Norwich closed just over a month ago in early July and we now have some results to share with you.

A report detailing the results of the consultation has been produced and will be available to read and download on our website from later this morning at www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl under the ‘Have your say’ section. However, before then we can give you a summary of some of the key findings.

The Norwich Western Link consultation had two elements – a text-based ‘Initial Views’ questionnaire and a map on which people could highlight transport issues in specific locations.

The Initial Views consultation received more than 1,700 responses while more than 750 comments from just over 530 contributors were ‘pinned’ to the consultation map.

The results show that the majority of people who took part in the consultation believe a new road linking the A47 to Broadland Northway (previously the Northern Distributor Road) would help tackle transport issues in the area. This option was selected more than three times as much as the next most popular option, ‘Improving existing roads’.

The full breakdown of responses to this question, showing how many people selected each option, is as follows. For clarity's sake, as we've been asked about this, people could select as many options as they wanted:

People were asked ‘Although one potential option to tackle transport issues in this area is to build a new road we are committed to examining all of the possible options. Which options would you like us to explore?’

People who took part in the consultation were also asked to identify which transport problems were a particular issue in the area to the west of Norwich. The top three issues people selected were:

People were also asked which issues the County Council should consider when planning any transport improvements in the area. The top three issues people selected were:

While we've got the results of the options people selected in the consultation, further work to analyse the ‘free text’ information given as part of the consultation is still ongoing, including going through the 773 comments people ‘pinned’ to a consultation map to highlight problems in specific locations.

We'll use the information from the consultation, as well as other data and evidence, to help propose some options to improve travel in the area to the west of Norwich. A further consultation on these is likely to take place later this year and we'll be in touch to let you know more about this nearer the time.

Please do have a look at the full report when it becomes available later this morning as this has further details which you might find interesting.