Last week, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) indicated that England could lose most of its real countryside within a single generation in their Your Countryside, Your Choice report.



Norfolk Green County Councillors Andrew Boswell and Chris Hull say this confirms many people’s worst fears of the urban sprawl and sub-urbanisation which would result from the building of an NDR (Norwich Northern Distributor Road), and the implementation of current plans for Norwich to be a “Growth Point” for developers. Norfolk County Council has submitted the Norfolk Employment Growth Study (NEGS) as a Supplementary Representations on the Draft East of England Plan – it calls for the designation of the Norwich sub-region as a new growth point with increased targets for jobs and houses. Yesterday news emerged of plans for an 8,000 home “urban village” on Norwich’s northern green belt fringe.



Cllrs. Boswell and Hull will tell a special meeting of the Norwich Area committee, comprising County Councillors from Norwich City that the current plans for an NDR and associated building development would destroy the character of Norwich, as well as contributing to planet endangering climate change. The Councillors say that the combined effects of urban sprawl, visual impact, climate change and Oil shortages and spiralling fuel costs make the NDR a non-starter.



Cllr. Chris Hull said “These plans to create a ‘greater Norwich area’ would become the one of the worse examples of this growing and dangerous national problem. Each programme, a road or a new housing estate seems a small step by itself, but these incremental developments in housing, roads, and airports are accumulating quickly - at the rate of 21sq miles per year across England - that is an equivalent area to a city the size of Southampton lost to land development each year. The crux of the CPRE report is the accumulative destruction - if it is not halted, would erode nearly all the open spaces in our beautiful but built-up country within a generation. What will be left for future generations? ”



Cllr. Andrew Boswell said “It is amazing that the County Council go on trying to promote the NDR road scheme and growth plans for Norwich. The CPRE report details what is plain to see - that new roads are carving up what's left of our countryside, and rampant new housing schemes are destroying rural England. On current trends, our country side will have all but disappeared by 2035 - all major roads, create in their wake, large building developments along their length and city-side “infill” of any ring they create.



The current plans would accelerate this destruction in the Norwich area - the East of England Regional Assembly plans were already for much faster growth than the rest of the UK, and the Council is now pushing for even faster growth with NEGS. From Drayton and Taverham, through Horsham St Faith and Spixworth, to the Plumsteads, north Norwich would become a huge and unpleasant urban sprawl – the beautiful visual landscape around our city would be destroyed for ever. In short, the NDR will destroy the Norwich sub-area’s Green belt, and ruin the character of the surrounding villages for ever. And this doesn’t even include the wanton destruction of open, rural space in the Weston Longville to Tud Valley and Easton area on the West. ”

Notes:



The Norfolk County Council Norwich Area Committee meets on Wednesday 14th September 2005 4.00 pm at Norman Centre, Bignold Road, Mile Cross, Norwich.

Agenda :  http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/groups/public/documents/agenda/norarea140905agendapdf.pdf



Also meeting : The Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council Planning, Transportation and the Environment, Waste and Economic Development Review Panel meets on Wednesday 14th September 2005 10.30 am in the Edwards Room, County Hall, Norwich.

Agenda :  http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/groups/public/documents/agenda/plantran140905agendapdf.pdf

NDR item:  http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/groups/public/documents/committee_report/plantran140905item7pdf.pdf



The Norfolk Employment Growth Study promotes the idea of large increases to current plans in growth and jobs in the Norwich area. See: “Norfolk Employment Growth Study: Supplementary Representations on the Draft East of England Plan” at

 http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/groups/public/documents/committee_report/plantran130705item9pdf.pdf

The Campaign to Protect for Rural England (CPRE) published their Your Countryside, Your Choice report on Friday September 9th. It realistically predicts a landscape where "town" does not end and "countryside" does not begin, and where there is no rural landscape truly distinct from town, city or suburb. Instead, there is "an out-of-town state of retail parks, meandering housing estates, ring roads, the backs of gardens, streetlights, signs and masts." That landscape, the report says, "is spattered and blotched with housing and sheds of all colours but mostly large, while what remains of open land is riddled with fairways, paddocks and shimmering polythene. The varicose network of roads pervades all, ceaselessly coursing with traffic."

 http://www.cpre.org.uk/news-releases/news-rel-2005/56-05.htm (Photo: David Rose/CPRE).



The CPRE called five policy objectives, all of which are relevant to a rural county as Norfolk. These are:

redouble efforts to promote efficient use of land for housing, aiming for at least 75% of new housing on previously developed land at an average density of at least 40 units per hectare;
a regional policy which respects environmental capacity, rather than requiring pushing for maximum development in all parts of the country;
encouragement of local food and commodity procurement to reduce dependence on national distribution systems, especially motorways and trunk roads;
continued funding for farmers to manage the countryside both to retain the character of the landscapes and to conserve natural resources such as soil and water;
an end to a policy of predict and provide for national and regional airport capacity.