Support

Representation ID: 21928

Received: 13/03/2020

Respondent: Bidwells

Bidwells strongly support the allocation of land adjoining Norwich City Football Club for mixed use
development, including a minimum of 270 homes. The site is considered to be entirely deliverable, and
capable of making a significant contribution towards the need for additional leisure, community, residential,
community, retail and office uses in the Greater Norwich Area during the period to 2038.

The site is allocated in the adopted Joint Core Strategy and has, through the development of Carrow Quay
(Broadland Housing and NR1 (Taylor Wimpey), already made a significant contribution towards housing
delivery in the Greater Norwich area. It has the potential to be developed to provide a range of uses, which
as well as residentially could include a multi purposes Arena, that could be used for, amongst other things,
sport, music and conferencing; helping to achieve a sustainable development.

The site occupies a highly sustainable location within Norwich City Centre due to its proximity to a range
of services and amenities and sustainable modes of transport, notably Norwich Railway Station. It has the
potential to help facilitate the regeneration of the East Norwich area.

whilst future connectivity with the East Norwich area is a key
objective, the development of the site is not dependent on the regeneration of the wider area, as is
demonstrated by the above referenced developments; a fact that should be specifically mentioned in either
the policy or supporting text in order to provide certainty. Failure to do this will potentially delay the delivery
of Site Reference CC16. On this basis, a few minor alterations are proposed to the policy.

The principal change relates to the removal of the need to provide a public transport interchange on site,
together with a public transport strategy for the wider east Norwich strategic regeneration area.

whilst it is acknowledged that
any development will need to demonstrate how it will connect and be accessible by public transport, the
requirement to provide a public transport interchange is considered unnecessary. It will also, depending
on what is required to deliver a public transport interchange, potentially result in the development being
unviable.

The policy also states that any proposal will be required to provide a public transport strategy for the wider
east Norwich strategic regeneration area. As detailed above, whilst the redevelopment of the Norwich East
area is supported, its delivery is completely independent from the development of the land covered by site
allocation CC16.

the requirement to provide a public transport strategy
for the wider Norwich East areas as part of the development of site allocation CC16 would be both
unreasonable and disproportionate.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, to ensure that the development of site allocation CC16 facilitates both
pedestrian and public transport accessibility to the Norwich East area, it is recognised that any proposal
must demonstrate how it would facilitate future links with the adjacent site.

(For full representation and suggested revised policy wording, please refer to attached document)