Cllr Maxine Webb (Ind) and Peter Silburn interviewed on BBC Radio Norfolk Chris Goreham show 8th September 2025 regarding the removal of cycle improvements from the Larkman Lane junction scheme on Dereham Road.
Now though, there’s anger that plans to make a busy junction in Norwich safer for cyclists have been dropped. Other improvements are going to be made to the crossroads on Dearham Road and Larkman Lane near an Aldi supermarket, but work specifically to improve things for bike users now won’t take place because North County Council says the costs have gone up too much. Local independent counselor Maxine Webb says she’s fuming. She’s been speaking to our political reporter Paul Mosley who began by asking her about the work that was supposed to happen. There were going to be two concussings. There was going to be advanced cycle lanes put in at the junctions so cyclists could go ahead of cars um to make you know for a safer start for them and really to start future proofing it so that further improvements for cyclist could be made later on to make this junction which is really you know it’s a huge junction to to get across for a cyclist to make it safer for them as well as the bus lanes that were being put in. Yeah, for people who aren’t familiar with the road, it’s Dearan Road. It takes you to the A47. It’s one of the busiest parts of the city, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. It’s It really joins up so many different routes from from coming Yeah. from coming into the city from uh the A47 and also, you know, lots of um UEA um travel across from uh Larkman Lane in that direction. So, it’s it’s it’s um it’s really heavily used. The plans have now been changed. The things that have been put in to to help cyclists on it have been removed. How did you feel when you found that out? I’m stunned and um fuming really that it was just done unilaterally. I I couldn’t believe it to be honest. When I thought when I when I realized what what had happened, I just thought this this has got to be a mistake. This this can’t be right. Graeme Plant who’s the councelor responsible for transport in Norolk. He said that basically the money isn’t there right now, but this is something we will look at doing in the future. Does that reassure you at all? No, not at all. Because the money was there when these plans were were were drawn up and put together. The the they were they were done with the the funding in mind because I had lots of conversations um with officers and you know, we looked at other things. They were like, “Well, we can’t do that. We can’t we can’t put this in, but what we can do is this with the funding we’ve got.” So everything that was in those plans was costed at the time. It was all done um within the scope of the funding that had been assigned to it very much so. So the idea that it wasn’t funded is it is now no longer funded is just just doesn’t doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make any sense. And even if even if there’s a there’s a there’s an issue over funding now, why is it only cycling that has been affected? Why is everything else staying as it is? Why is it only is just this the cycling elements that have been targeted and completely taken out? Well, that was Maxine Webb, an independent counselor who’s not happy at all. The plans to bring in cycling safety measures on the Dearham Road, Larkman Lane junction in Norwich now won’t go ahead. Peter Sila is from the Norwich cycling campaign and has cycled into the studio this morning. So, you’re on brand, Peter. Nice to see you. Thanks for coming in this morning. This is a busy junction, isn’t it? heading west out of Norwich, maybe towards the A47 or coming in from the A47. I don’t know how familiar you are with trying to to cycle along it, but what’s it like? Well, I I live close by actually. And so Durham Road, as we all know, is a is, you know, busy arterial road into the city. Uh it’s had some cycling improvements further out of the city, but this area here is kind of a bit of a missing link. Uh this particular junction with Larkman Lane is really very dangerous for cycling whether you’re cycling on Darham Road or crossing on Larkman Lane. Uh the Lachman Lane crossing is is an important route between the two. The blue sorry the green pedal way on erm green lane and the red pedalway on the Marriott’s way. It’s it’s you know popular cycle route but it’s really horrendously dangerous. You see most people don’t actually cycle on the road. They go they take the pedestrian crossing. So, it’s a it’s a crossing that’s really highly dangerous and badly needs to be made safer. And this scheme, although it wasn’t brilliant, would would go some way to uh to doing so. So, we’re extremely disappointed to put it mildly uh that the cycling element from this scheme has been removed. You say it wasn’t brilliant, but but how much better would it have been if these changes? What what it would have done would be put in so widening the pavements and put in what are called toucan crossings. So they’re crossings that uh you can use for a cycle and a pedestrian. So it’s shared use. So by today’s standards, not that brilliant, but you know, it would have been we we we supported it because we said, well, it’s kind of futurep proofing the junction. So what they’re doing, they’re replacing the traffic lights, which they do every 20 30 years. So it’s a once in a kind of generation chance to change the traffic lights. Uh and if you, you know, it’s not much doesn’t cost much more to make them tukans rather than the puffins. So if you don’t make make them tukkins now, it’s never going to happen for 20 or 30 years. So it’s it’s you know this should have done this now. So at least you future proofing the junction so that when you come back and you’ve got some more money later to come back and put cycle lanes on the roads, it all links up. Whereas now with what they’re doing now, it’ll forever be a dangerous crossing for cycling. The county council says it would like to have done this work. It had plans to do this work, but it just doesn’t have enough money to do it. Do you accept that? Well, no. I mean, okay, th this is a common problem with any any project that costs go up, etc. But usually what happens is that you then renegotiate or you search for further funds. You don’t just drop things from the scheme. You know, this would never happen with a motorway widening. You know, they wouldn’t say, “Oh, well, we’ve only got money for widening this bit and the next bit isn’t widened.” So, um, it, you know, it’s it’s they really should be doing this. And you know when they bid for the money, this was from something from the central government transforming cities fund, it’s for sustainable transport infrastructure. Uh and when they put the scheme out to consultation, it had the cycling element in it. Uh so it does seem rather bizarre that at the last minute they’re removing it. But you did mention earlier on that there have been other cycle lanes, other cycle provisions put in further up dear road. And I think the cycling provision around Norwich, around Norfolk is much better than it used to be, isn’t it? Um yes. I mean, Norwich, uh, I always say, you know, for a UK city isn’t bad for cycling. It’s just that that’s not saying an awful lot. Um, what I think is extremely disappointing is things seem to be getting worse. I mean, North County Council is very good at bidding for money for for kind of sustainable transport, but they’re very bad at what they actually do with it. The schemes they put in are very poor. I mean, this is not an isolated incident. um you know lots of the other schemes that we’ve been involved with you know they’ve been sort of watered down and cycling elements have been removed so this is part of a trend here and you know north county council has bold ambition they say that by 2030 half of all journeys in towns and cities will be by walking and cycling that’s 5 years time well that’s just not going to happen you know they need to be seriously investing in cycle infrastructure and I know you have a particular concern with the way these decisions are made don’t you do do you feel that you as in the cycling community in in Norfolk are not perhaps consulted enough on what you would like to see. Uh well yes I mean the particular issue you’re referring to is this uh transport for Norwich steering group. Now there’s a whole history to that which I won’t go into but uh that has been going for about 18 months or so and that’s been meeting in secret which is quite bizarre. Um you know it’s not even published on on the council website. I had to put in a freedom of information request to actually find the schedule of meetings. Um now that meet that meeting although and at that meeting the uh cabinet member for highways which is Graham council Graham Plant he makes the decision solely uh which in itself is a bit of a bizarre situation but uh this this steering group is meant to meet and at least recommend things to him. It’s it’s made up of local counselors now that hasn’t met since December last year and it’s meant to meet every two months. So it hasn’t met for nine months and this particular decision he made outside of the meeting. Um so and you know I think that’s a a bad way for making decisions. It you know means you get bad bad decision making and this is a case in point. Just to finish with the county council have told us that they if if more money becomes available they would still like to do this work but from what you’re saying this morning you can’t think that happen. I mean I have to be blunt here. That’s nonsense. I mean to say oh we’re not really removing it. We’re just not going to do it at this time. Now, we get told this all the time. You know, this is uh happens time and time again. They schemes get watered down or cycling key features get removed from cycle schemes and they say, “Don’t worry, we’ll come back and do it later.” And they never do. Thank you for coming in this morning. Safe cycling for the rest of the day, having come to see us this morning, Peter Sil from the Norwich Cycling Campaign. Now, uh Graeme Plant, as was mentioned, is the Conservative counselor responsible for roads in Norfolk. Uh we did ask to speak to him about this. He said as a statement, he says it’s regrettable that the council has had to change its plans. He blames the rising costs and limited availability of funding. He has said though that the council will still be carrying out work which would improve the junction for bus users regarding how decisions made on transport projects. Mr. Plant said the steering group set up to advise them was not a decision-making body and it was absolutely correct decisions on transport projects took place outside of meetings. He also said meeting every two months was not a stated minimum requirement. You can read more about this on the BBC website, bbc.co.uk/norfoot.