Norwich Western Link FAQs

Independent surveys have recently identified the presence of what is likely to be the largest breeding population of one of the UK’s rarest bat species, the barbastelle. Several old woodlands on and close to the route have been confirmed as “maternity woodlands” and hold breeding colonies which, together, make up a super colony with a population higher than any other recorded in the UK. 

The importance of the area nationally for barbastelle bats, which are fully protected under wildlife law, cannot be underestimated. The colonies are highly dependent on the high-quality network of woodland, wetland and river habitats in the surrounding area.  

The NWL would destroy some of the breeding woodlands and sever the connectivity between the remainder of the woodland breeding sites, isolating the colonies from each other, as well as placing the bats at risk of collision with the traffic on the NWL as they attempt to move across the landscape for feeding. This risks the long-term complete loss of the super-colony, which could be catastrophic for the future of the species in the UK. 

The landscape between the A47 and A1067 is a well-connected network of vital wildlife habitats including ancient woodlands, grasslands, chalk streams and floodplain. It supports ancient oak trees and species including bats, badgers and farmland birds such as yellowhammer and linnet. 

The proposed development will fragment this wildlife-rich area, damage the River Wensum Site of Special of Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and destroy parts of three County Wildlife Sites: River Wensum Pastures; Primrose Grove; and Land adjoining Foxburrow Plantation. 

Old woodlands and ancient trees are a rare and irreplaceable wildlife habitat. Several such woodlands are found adjacent to the proposed route. The River Wensum and River Tud, both affected by the proposed route, are wildlife-rich chalk rivers, one of the rarest habitats in the world, with fewer than 200 found across the globe. 

Norfolk County Council have admitted that the area of impact of the development will extend much further than the width of the carriageways. The land around the road will also become fragmented and degraded for wildlife through noise, lights and pollution. Impacts will include: 

• Noise from the road can affect the communication between birds across the landscape, including linnet, yellowhammer and skylark, all of which are on the red-list of conservation concern. This is very likely to lead to losses in local populations, leaving them more vulnerable in the future. 

• Species including owls, bats and badgers will be at risk of collisions with vehicles. 

• More light penetrating the dark centre of woodland will disturb bats and birds. 

• Wildlife-rich chalk streams are particularly vulnerable to pollution from surface water run-off from the road. 

NWT is a member of the Ecology Liaison Group, set up by the Council to discuss progress with the ecological surveys and road design as they work towards the planning application. Discussion in the group has included potential mitigation options that the Council are considering. The Council has suggested during discussions mitigation including bat boxes to replace lost roost sites in trees, new tree planting to compensate for loss of foraging habitat and green bridges and tunnels created in places where the road will sever routes for wildlife across the landscape.  

Whilst no formal designs have been provided to date, we believe that it is not possible to mitigate for the scale of impacts on wildlife with the measures proposed. As such, significant permanent losses to a number of important habitats and a large number of protected species are inevitable. 

Fundamentally NWT don’t believe there is any route for the NWL that won’t have unacceptable impacts on wildlife. 

In July 2022, Norfolk County Council shared data from new ecological surveys on the location of bat roosts and feeding areas within a mature woodland found on the proposed route, and published a new route map that they believe will avoid significant impacts to the bats. The route change would avoid a roost tree found by Council surveyors, but this makes very little difference to the wider impacts of the route and is not evidence that the route is now acceptable.  
 
Conservation Scientist and bat expert, Dr Charlotte Packman, has been leading a research collaboration studying barbastelle bat colonies in the area for the past five years. She has confirmed that Norfolk County Council’s reports only show a very limited snapshot of what is known about the nationally important barbastelle super-colony that is located here – with colony counts, home ranges, foraging areas and roosts substantially underrepresented in their reports.  
 
For example, at one colony the peak count recorded by the Council’s surveys is reported as 27 barbastelles, where her research team have recorded 105. Dr Packman’s data have been verified by the University of East Anglia, making this currently the largest known barbastelle roost in the country.   

It is very concerning that the true scale and importance of the barbastelle super-colony has not been presented in the Council’s reports and therefore the proposed impact of the road on barbastelles will be significantly underestimated.  

NWT has written to Norfolk County Council to share its concerns about the protected habitats and species at all stages of consultation on the proposed development. We have highlighted that the proposed bat boxes and new tree planting — regardless of scale — cannot replicate the mature woodland roosting habitats used by a significant colony of endangered bats on the route. 

We also wrote several times to the Department for Transport to urge that the NWL is removed from further consideration for funding, for the same reasons. 

In recognition of their importance for barbastelle bats, NWT has also written to Natural England to urge them to designate a group of woodlands on the proposed route as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC). This area clearly meets the criteria for SSSI and SAC status and deserves the full protection under wildlife law that this designation provides. As the area is highly likely to support the UK’s largest barbastelle bat population, safeguarding the important mosaic of habitats that the bats are dependent on in this area through SSSI and SAC designation is a vital step in safeguarding the species’ future in the UK. NWT was pleased to learn that, following our request and sharing of data in 2022, Natural England has added the Wensum Woodlands to a list of sites being considered for designation as SSSIs.   

Different bat species have different roosting requirements. Barbastelle bat breeding colonies are measured collectively at the woodland scale due to the species’ dependency on many different roost trees within the same woodland, which they regularly switch between due to their changing requirements and social interactions throughout the breeding season. Barbastelle colonies are highly faithful to their breeding woodlands, with the same colonies occupying the same woodlands every year. 

Evidence demonstrates that their success is dependent on the whole woodland rather than individual roost trees on their own and that breeding colonies can only be safeguarded if the whole woodland is protected. 

Barbastelles have very specific requirements, needing mature woodlands with a range of suitable roost trees (they favour loose bark features on old and dead trees) in high quality landscapes with access to extensive and well-connected foraging grounds. They are very strongly site-faithful, returning each year to the same woodland to breed and are known to be mostly sedentary and unable to easily colonise new areas. There are a limited number of suitable woodlands within the landscape (and the few nearby suitable woodlands are occupied by other barbastelle colonies within the super-colony) and habitats are already under significant pressure and have become fragmented by other developments (including the NDR). Therefore, it is very unlikely that the bats would simply be able to move to alternative suitable habitat in the area and overcome the range of major impacts from the road to survive and reproduce in the long-term. 

There is a lack of evidence to support the effectiveness of bat mitigation measures for roads (particularly for barbastelles) and growing evidence that existing approaches are failing to protect bat populations.  Norfolk County Council’s own monitoring data on mitigation measures intended to protect bats on the existing NDR route have unfortunately shown a similar picture, with only a very small proportion of resident bats using the bridges and gantries that were put in place with the aim of helping them move across the landscape separated by the road. Their data also indicate that barbastelle colonies present within 2.5km of the NDR pre-construction, are no longer likely to be present post-construction. 

This suggests that, even with mitigation measures in place, the presence of the road has destroyed a previously well-used feeding, breeding and roosting area for bats. 

Independent bat research on this barbastelle population has been ongoing for the past decade, pre-dating any serious intentions to progress plans for a Western Link for the NDR.   The research has been undertaken by a range of different groups working together over this period, including Wild Wings Ecology, the University of East Anglia and the Norfolk Barbastelle Study Group (now part of the Norfolk & Norwich Bat Group).  

Since 2022 the lead researcher, Dr Packman, has been employed by NWT to support this vital research for barbastelle conservation and to enable the specific risks associated with the proposed NWL to be further investigated and evidence gathered, data analysed and reports and peer-reviewed scientific papers produced so that it will be available to everyone to read. 

We are still in the data collection, analysis and write-up phase of this work and sharing detailed data publicly at this stage could jeopardise the academic publication process. 

However, we have met with Norfolk County Council to make them aware of the deficiencies in their data. This included presenting our results and findings and sharing interim reports with them. We have advised the Council that the impacts of the road on barbastelles cannot be adequately mitigated and that submitting a planning application for the development in its current form will not meet their legal obligations to wildlife. 

Protecting our climate is essential for a thriving natural world.  The UK is committed to rapidly reducing the main driver of climate change - carbon pollution from roads, industry and energy.  We have our own Climate Change Act and contribute globally under the landmark Paris Agreement.   

Building new roads jeopardises these commitments.  So much so that the Climate Change Committee advised the Government that new roads should only be built if delivering our climate obligations could be secured.  They called for a review of all current and future road building projects because rapid reductions in carbon pollution must be made by 2030 and 2035, as the move to electric vehicles is not decarbonising transport quickly enough.   

The road Norfolk County Council is proposing will increase Norfolk's carbon footprint by destroying carbon-storing natural habitats, using steel and concrete in the long viaduct, and vehicles using the new road.  The planning consultation documents show the road adding an extra 175,000 tonnes of carbon by 2035 against Council promises in the Local Transport Plan to save more than 5,000,000 tonnes of carbon over the same period (1).   

1 Local Transport Plan - Norfolk County Council (Local Transport Plan 4 Implementation Plan) 

Whilst we can’t support the Western Link Road due to its unacceptable impacts on wildlife, we recognise that members of the local community are experiencing issues with rat running on narrow roads in residential areas and support the exploration of alternative solutions.  

A key part of any major planning application is the consideration of alternatives, and being able to demonstrate that less environmentally damaging options for solving the problem are not possible. Based on the information publicly available at present, we do not believe that sufficient study of alternative ways to solving local traffic congestion had been carried out by the Council before they decided to focus on a multi-million-pound road that threatens to destroy Norfolk’s precious countryside as their preferred option. 

Whilst we are not experts on traffic solutions, we understand from other commentators that a range of measures to alleviate rat-running successfully used in other parts of the country have not yet been tried here. When the application is made, we will be reviewing the Council’s consideration of alternatives in detail. 

Norfolk County Council submitted a planning application for the road on 12 June 2024, which was following by a public consultation period, which ended on 19 August 2024.

During the consultation period, NWT launched a high-profile campaign against the development alongside a coalition of local and national organisations. 

The campaign resulted in members of the public sending over 4,600 objections against the road to the Council’s planning department during the public consultation period – sending a strong message that there is widespread opposition to the road across the county and beyond. 

Norfolk Wildlife Trust also sent its own detailed objection to the Council, outlining our concerns for the area’s wildlife and landscapes.

In recognition of the national significance of the environmental impacts of the proposed road, we wrote to Rt Hon Angela Raynor MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government following the close of the public consultation, to ask that the planning application be scruitnised by national government. 

We understand that no decision will be made on the planning application until 2025

The development of the Norwich Western Link may feel like a very local issue, but the consequences of building the road would be felt on a national scale – both in terms of impacts on a nationally important population of barbastelle bats and due to the dangerous precedent, such a decision would set for further developments across the UK that could harm wildlife. 

In the middle of a climate and nature emergency, this development is directly at odds with the UK government’s commitments through the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act, in which the UK is legally bound to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 and to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

Read more about why this is a national issue here. 

We urge you to speak up for Norfolk’s wildlife, and against the Norwich Western Link. 

We will watch as the story unfolds as we continue in our efforts to stop the Norwich Western Link, and will share news on this page of any further action you can take alongside us.

Norfolk Wildlife Trust is part of a growing collective of regional and national environmental organisations including Stop the Wensum Link, CPRE Norfolk, Friends of the Earth, the Woodland Trust, Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, Buglife, Norfolk and Norwich Bat Group and British Dragonfly Society, all of whom oppose the development on the grounds of the unacceptable impact it will have on wildlife and the wider natural landscape.