Anglia Square: Developer blames government as £300m regeneration scheme for Norwich is scrapped

A developer behind plans for a massive £300m city centre housing and shopping scheme says it will bin the proposals - after eight years of trying to get the green light.

Weston Homes had planned to create more than 1,000 homes, new office, leisure and retail space for the Anglia Square area of Norwich.

They claim the project would have created around 2,500 jobs, but the developer now says it has been forced to axe the scheme due to intervention from Rishi Sunak's government.

In a critical statement, it said the government had "no understanding of the importance of supporting the housebuilding industry, regional cities and local communities in the UK".

A government spokesman said housebuilding "remains a government priority and we are on track to deliver one million homes this parliament".

Bob Weston, chairman and managing director of Essex-based Weston Homes, said the firm had spent £7.5m on planning the scheme.

He said: "I am personally gutted to have to write off millions of pounds of company investment and not have a new scheme to show at the end of the venture."

He claimed the company had "bent over backwards" to make the scheme work and had worked closely with Norwich City Council and residents on the plans.

He added: “There are sadly no winners with this outcome... The core contributor to a lot of the issues in this saga is the Conservative government, which seems to have no understanding of the importance of supporting the housebuilding industry, regional cities and local communities in the UK."

It said one of the major factors was planning delays and related costs the firm had incurred as a result of national government intervention.

The scheme was granted local consent by Norwich City Council planning committee in 2018, however, Housing Minister Robert Jenrick decided to call in and overturn the local planning consent and the inspector’s recommendation to approve.

A revised scheme was eventually approved five years later.

Weston Homes also cited economic fallout from the pandemic, a rise in inflation-related building costs, a withdrawal of some additional funding and a Nutrient Neutrality directive from Natural England in 2022 which blocked the building of new homes across Norfolk.

The policy was designed to ensure natural environments were not polluted by new building projects.

Mr Weston said: "This was a development calculated to create circa 2,211 direct construction jobs, another circa 288 jobs in the completed retail and commercial premises, with the residents of the new housing calculated to spend up to £36.4m per annum in the local Norwich economy.

"None of this will now happen. The core contributor to a lot of the issues in this saga is the Conservative government."

A spokesperson for the Department of Levelling Up, Homes and Communities said: “In November 2020, the then Secretary of State refused planning permission for the redevelopment of Anglia Square, and his reasons were set out in a published letter.

“Housebuilding, however, remains a government priority and we are on track to deliver one million homes this Parliament. We have built over 2.5 million additional homes since April 2010 and last year alone we delivered over 234,000 homes which was higher than at any point between 1997 and 2010.

“Our ambitious long-term plan for housing will allow us to go even further, backed by billions in investment to boost supply and support the market to deliver the infrastructure and homes that our communities need.”

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