Major roadwork schemes cause traffic 'nightmare'

Work began on the Thickthorn Junction upgrade in September

Roadwork schemes on two major arterial routes in and out of a county are causing a "nightmare" for motorists and commuters, an MP has said.

A £200m upgrade of the Thickthorn junction of the A11, near Norwich, has coincided with a lane closure on the A47 southern bypass between Little Melton and the A140 Ipswich Road.

National Highways has acknowledged there would be some level of inconvenience in order to complete the works.

South Norfolk Labour MP Ben Goldsborough, who accused the relevant authorities of not speaking to each other, said: "Time and time again, are people not thinking things through?"

The works have also coincided with the dualling of the A47 to the west and east of the city, with a closure planned for the weekend - and other roadworks around Norwich.

"It's a nightmare," said Mr Goldsborough.

"The thing that annoys me, and I think annoys a lot of constituents as well, is we've got Highways England responsible for the work at the A47 at East Tuddenham, Thickthorn, and Blofield, but Norfolk County Council is responsible for things like the B1135 [a new roundabout at Hethel] - and they're not talking to each other.

"Everything is being done all at once."

Ben Goldsborough said he would continue to "pester" ministers about roadworks

Peter Nathanail, the managing director of Transport Made Simple, which runs Konectbus in the county, said the work at Thickthorn caused 40% of its Dereham to Norwich service to run late last week.

"That's a major impact for thousands of passengers who use that critical transport link, every day," he explained.

"We are fully supportive of making [the junction] better, long term.

"My concern is that if bus services become unreliable, people find other ways of travelling and they move away from that sustainable travel for good."

Oliver Medler, a director at J Medler Haulage based in Taverham, said he agreed Thickthorn needed "serious upgrades", but too much was happening at the same time.

"I've never seen that before, in the 18 years I've been doing this; they should concentrate on one big project at a time," he said.

"The delays are causing issues around our daily planning, our drivers' hours, and it's quite tough to manage.

"It will definitely make a difference to the bottom line, and I can't put a higher price on a job just because of some roadworks, because you end up losing out to another haulier.

"It is frustrating."

The A11, approaching Norwich, is also affected by the works

Graham Plant, cabinet member for highways, infrastructure and transport at the county council, said its teams worked hard to plan and manage roadworks, "coordinating with partners, including National Highways, to minimise disruption wherever possible".

"With around 40,000 to 50,000 sets of roadworks typically taking place each year, approximately 7,000 of which are emergency works, it's simply not feasible to suspend all other activity while these major projects are under way.

"Traffic management for the Thickthorn junction upgrade is expected to continue until spring 2027, so it is not possible to suspend all other necessary works in the vicinity."

He added the council was "very aware of the challenges" and was increasing maintenance work overnight to minimise disruption.

"We will continue to monitor the situation and make improvements to traffic management wherever we can, but due to the scale and nature of these infrastructure projects, some impact on the road network is unfortunately unavoidable."