Ndr Extension

[ChrisB]

[SwanR]

They really need to find a way to make that western connection to the A47. It’s such a shame that it doesn’t link up properly and safely. 

[Mouldy]

38 minutes ago, SwanR said:

They really need to find a way to make that western connection to the A47. It’s such a shame that it doesn’t link up properly and safely. 

I would imagine that people living on the rat-run through Weston Green and Weston Longville would concur!

Turning right onto the A47 heading from Attlebridge on the B1535 is extremely hazardous too.

I know that a lot of people aren’t fans of the NDR, but it does make sense having a ring road around Norwich.  It would take a lot of traffic away from roads that are inadequate for today’s traffic volumes.

[dom]

I'm no fan of paving over bits of green countryside, but the damage has really been already done with the NDR. It makes no sense whatsover to oppose a link across to the A47, which would keep traffic to a primary route and probably have a wider benefit to both nature and people living in the area.

[Hylander]

I dont know about Bats but more likely the word Batty comes to mind.       Any excuse.   One day these people will wake up and realise people matter more.     Wild animals adapt, just look at Urban Foxes.    Years ago you only saw them in the wild in the countryside, now they are in towns.

[rightsaidfred]

Sadly Natural England have become all powerful and have taken everything to the extreme, I am all for protecting the flora and fauna but there needs to be a balance.

Fred

[MargeandParge]

When ever they construct a ring road or bypass. Within a short while they build from the town to the edge of it. Normally upsetting those that thought it would help them.

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[MargeandParge]

They don't leave all the spurs off roundabouts for farmers. Just one more point is that the more accessible places are the more they get visited just because they can be and not because people really want to go there. Only my thoughts. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[Norfolkangler]

They put two bat net crossings in the NDR at a huge additional cost as they had also done so on the Thetford Bypass.

Are we to be led to believe that the bats follow this route over the road to avoid getting hit by a car!!!!!! Has anyone on here ever been unfortunate enough to actually hit a bat whilst driving at night? Whilst I totally agree with protecting the wildlife, I would also like to see some factual evidence to suggest that Bats will use the crossings. The larger picture for me would be the overrun on time and expense (as seems to be the normal nowadays) at the taxpayers expense.  

And YES as has been mentioned previously, as soon as the road is in, along comes even more housing. Funny really, that gets the go ahead with no issues or am I just being cynical.

[BroadAmbition]

The general consensus on the Rhond is that those bat crossings on the NDR are totally useless.

I've never seen a bat anywhere near them when night driving 

Griff

[marshman]

Griff - you are absolutely correct. Despite the huge cost of building them, totally without any evidence of their functionality, a recent report concluded that there was absolutely no evidence that any of the "bat crossings" had ever been used by bats.

I don't think that this will be the end of the matter - it is totally logical to extend the NDR but you just need to find the right route! Like many things you have to get the balance right and sadly this is needed whatever the tree huggers say.

However whilst I am sure it will happen, sadly I will not live to see it, and to those who fear more new houses, the marshes of the Wensem Valley are never going to be built on - it is really very wet and soggy which is why it is proving so expensive to build in the first place!

[TheQ]

If you look at the NDR,  it's taken much more land than it would in the past, precisely because of " green " measures. There are cycleways bridle ways, treed areas, and all sorts of land grabs that take more farm land.

[Vaughan]

The Broads National Parkway (which I am sure they wanted to call it) is not a Norwich bypass nor a northern ring road and was never designed to be.  It was built as a feeder road into what is fast becoming a vast and all-enveloping dormitory housing estate.  It is what the planners are calling the "Growth Triangle", which is already beginning - and is planned - to smother the whole of the countryside  between Norwich, Wroxham, Brundall and Acle.

So in the future a journey from Norwich to the Broads by car or train, will be undertaken entirely through a landscape of random "affordable" little boxes, each with its wooden barrier fence around it, while all the surrounding roads, pavements, driveways and patios will just cause all the now polluted rainwater to run off into the Broads rivers.

When I think of the beautiful central Norfolk farmland that I grew up in, it makes me weep.

If you extend the NDR you will simply extend the total devastation and rape of all the land around it.

So where will the bats go then, I wonder?

 

[Smoggy]

I don't think bats are supposed to use the crossings as such  I think the idea is the detect the structure and go up above lorry trailer height.

There will be no evidence either way as bats hit by high vehicles will be tucked between trailer and cab and taken away from the site.

[BroadAmbition]

There will be no evidence either way as bats hit by high vehicles will be tucked between trailer and cab and taken away from the site.

Really? 

So every Bat that collides with a vehicle will be stuck in between cab and trailer?

There's me now educated that Bats hit only articulated lorries then and further to that they only hit between the cab and trailer unit?

In the words of Victor Meldrew - 'I don't believe it'   or   John McEnroe - 'You cannot be serious'

I have yet to see any evidence of dead bats anywhere along the NDR let alone adjacent to the modern art that is referred to as Bat crossings.

Besides which, the sonar arrangement that bats employ is right up there, better than anything mere mortals have produced.  

Bats use their sonar at night to catch insects on the wing - Yet can't avoid an articulated lorry? 

Griff

 

[Hylander]

9 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

There will be no evidence either way as bats hit by high vehicles will be tucked between trailer and cab and taken away from the site.

Really? 

So every Bat that collides with a vehicle will be stuck in between cab and trailer?

There's me now educated that Bats hit only articulated lorries then and further to that they only hit between the cab and trailer unit?

In the words of Victor Meldrew - 'I don't believe it'   or   John McEnroe - 'You cannot be serious'

I have yet to see any evidence of dead bats anywhere along the NDR let alone adjacent to the modern art that is referred to as Bat crossings.

Besides which, the sonar arrangement that bats employ is right up there, better than anything mere mortals have produced.  

Bats use their sonar at night to catch insects on the wing - Yet can't avoid an articulated lorry? 

Griff

 

So true.  Well said.

[Vaughan]

In all seriousness, I understand that the idea is that bats tend to follow the same route along the sides of woodland or hedges when out hunting at night. I know that they actually hunt in a regular course pattern, going round in small circles.

The bat crossings are supposed to give them a trail to follow, where the road building has taken away the original course of the woodland. This therefore keeps them at a safe height above the road.

As what little is left of their woodland habitat will soon become several square miles of housing estate I think the whole idea is spurious.

[Smoggy]

That was purely an explanation I'd heard from whichever bunch it was (I can't remember) explaining the ones on the a11 upgrade, they cost a fortune and no one knows if they are any use.

I think it was a section on Jeremy vine's show back then.

[marshman]

They do know they are NOT in use - they have been studying them for some time with cameras and bat detection equipment and have found no evidence that they are being used as intended.

[oldgregg]

Take this with a massive pinch of salt because it's from those talented folk at Archant.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/local-council/20769218.controversial-175-000-bat-bridges-ndr-work-surveys-reveal/

[oldgregg]

Everything I've heard about the NDR from people in infrastructure seems to suggest that the Western Link was always planned, but that the council knew they'd never get the cost approved to build it in one go so they split the project into two.

The overall cost of doing so (allowing for inflation, analysis etc) is almost certainly going to be more but that's public sector procurement...

[BuffaloBill]

The biggest increase in costs comes from Andrew Boswell

and his 'crowd funding' group who keep taking it to court

for one reason or another! The thing is, he has not used

£1 of his own money to fund all the court cases and

also the actions have been kicked out every time!

He now is thinking of taking it to the Supreme Court!!

Each time he does this. it seems it increases the costs

by millions each time. He then complains it is costing

too much!! And yet it cost him NOTHING!!!!!