The following message has been received from Cllr Martin Wilby, Cabinet Member for Highways and Infrastructure at Norfolk County Council:

I’m really pleased to tell you that we have today awarded the contract to design and build the Norwich Western Link to Ferrovial Construction.

Ferrovial Construction are a leading construction and engineering company who have a great deal of experience in delivering highways projects in the UK and around the world. We have appointed them following a competitive procurement process which began in summer 2020, in which they emerged as the highest scoring bidder, and a unanimous decision by the county council’s cabinet earlier this month to award the contract.

Their team will start work immediately alongside our existing project team to further develop the design of the Norwich Western Link and we’re really looking forward to working with them to deliver such an important project for Norfolk. If you want to find out more about our newly appointed contractor, you can visit their website at www.ferrovial.com.

In other good news, we have also submitted the outline business case for the Norwich Western Link to the Department for Transport today. You will hopefully remember from my recent updates that we have a really strong case – we can demonstrate that the project would provide high value for money, significantly reduce many journey times to the west of Norwich, improve road safety and reduce carbon emissions from vehicles. If the outline business case is approved, this would provide a funding commitment from government which is expected to cover 85% of the £198 million total project costs.

These are two significant milestones on this project that bring us closer to making the Norwich Western Link a reality. I’m aware that some of you may have had journeys delayed by roadworks in and around Norwich recently – I hope you understand that roadworks are a necessity but I also know how frustrating they can be, I’ve been caught up in them myself so I can sympathise. But it also made me think that with the Norwich Western Link in place, traffic on the A47 southern bypass and ring roads would have an alternative route to take.

We need this kind of resilience in our transport networks, not only for when there are issues like roadworks or traffic collisions but also to cope with anticipated population and job growth. It’s important that we invest in measures to support all kinds of journeys, whether they are on foot, by bike, by public transport or by another vehicle, such as cars, lorries or ambulances. The Norwich Western Link is a vital part of this that will help give Norfolk the transport infrastructure it needs.

We’re turning our attention now to preparations for the pre-planning application public consultation which is due to take place in the autumn. We’ll update you about this prior to the launch.

In the meantime, you can find out more about the Norwich Western Link on our website at www.norfolk.gov.uk/nwl.

Best wishes,

Martin