Call lost for Government to decide plans for Norwich road

The western link road would connect the Broadland Northway at the A1067 with the A47 at Easton

A call for local planners to ask the government to decide on the future of a new £247m road scheme in Norfolk has been dismissed.

New guidance to protect bats along the proposed Western Link Road near Norwich appeared to have placed it in doubt.

A Labour bid for the county council to ask the secretary of state to "call in" the project was lost on Tuesday.

Conservative council leader Kay Mason Billig said: "We need to do the proper planning process."

Natural England said the council would have to show the conservation status of the barbastelle bats "would not be negatively affected" by the Norwich Western Link road

The 3.9 mile (6.3km) link road would connect the Broadland Northway at the A1067 with the A47 at Easton.

If approved, it would complete the Northern Distributor Road around the north of Norwich.

However, it needs to get a bat mitigation licence from Natural England.

This is because there is a super colony of rare barbastelle bats in woodland in the path of the proposed road. Without this, the building work would be illegal.

Officers at the council have decided the new guidance means it would be "virtually impossible" for them to be granted the licence.

Steve Morphew is calling for the government to decide the future of the Norwich Western Link road

Steve Morphew, leader of the Labour group at the council, suggested the authority ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, to "call the matter in" early.

This would take the planning decision out of the hands of the council and leave it with central government.

Mr Morphew said this would avoid delays and save money and rising costs due to inflation. But councillors voted against his idea.

"The fact the Conservatives have said they are not prepared to go along with that just offers us this drawn out, expensive, divisive process to go on and on," he said.

"And people in the west of Norwich, who are looking for a solution to their rat-running problems, I think will be sitting there with their heads in their hands."

Council leader Kay Mason Billig said the authority had been working with Natural England for 14 months in its bid to deliver the road

Ms Mason Billig said the council was still planning to press ahead with the application for the road.

"Nothing has changed. The timetable is exactly the same as it always was," she said.

"We need for people to be able to comment on our planning application and I think that's very important with such a big infrastructure scheme.

"To try and call it in ahead of doing any of that work is completely unprecedented."