Like Norwich?

There were over 80 statements from the public submitted for the Development Control Meeting where the Memorial Stadium application was decided. One of them was from Chris Graham who talks about his experience of the stadium expansion at Norwich City FC. He once lived near the Memorial Stadium but now lives near the Carrow Road stadium and draws comparisons between the two redevelopments.

At least one of the councillors on the development control committee has since said that this statement influenced his decision to vote in favour of the Memorial Stadium plans. The fact that the statement was the third out of over 80 statements, means it was far more likely to have been read by all of the councillors on the committee and may have influenced them also.

On face value his statement is very encouraging and makes the following points:

• Supporting stadiums increases political popularity (which is not a planning consideration)
• The redevelopment has increased property values (which is not a planning consideration)
• Norwich stadium has been expanded to a capacity of 26,000 which is more than the Memorial Stadium
• Recent development included restaurant, hotel and hundreds of new flats without parking
• The stadium car park was built on and no longer offers spectator parking
• Access to the stadium area is via two small bridges which also serve a shopping and entertainment complex
• Traffic problems have reduced due to redevelopments

Which sounds marvellous (if not miraculous). You can read the text of the statement here.



It makes sense to understand the local circumstances in Norwich to judge how valid his comparisons are. Below is a small map of Norwich, clicking on it will open up a larger version.



Geography


Norwich is about the size of Swindon and has a population of about 120,000. It has two ring roads, an inner and an outer, with the inner ring just under a mile in diameter circling the central part of the city. The two ring roads actually join and become one in the south east corner of the city where the stadium is located. The city has six park and rides along the main routes out of the city. Within the inner ring road there are car parks with a total capacity of over 5,000 spaces.

The Riverside area is to the south east and is separated from the city centre by the river and is bounded by railway lines to the north east. The railway station is in the north end of the area and the ring road goes through Riverside from north and then crosses the river to the south where it is called Carrow Road. The stadium is directly south of Carrow Road just before it crosses the river. There is the smaller Novi Sad bridge crossing towards the city centre in the middle of the area. There is a third bridge on Prince of Wales Rd from the city centre just north of Riverside connected to the ring road. The ring road itself does not cross the river on the north side and would allow access to Riverside without use of a bridge.

There are four storey terraced housing that has been built within the last twenty years along the rivers edge facing the city centre. In the middle of Riverside is a large complex similar to the Venue at Cribbs Causeway with the cinema, bowling and other leisure facilities which has a car park for 738 cars.

View from Novi Sad bridge northwards



As explained by by Chris Graham the stadium has built an eight storey block of flats on its former car park and a seven storey hotel in the corner between stands.

Views from inside the stadium of the 7 story hotel being built (that directly overlooks terrace houses):




The western corner of a triangular area of Victorian terraced housing lies across the road from the eastern corner of the hotel. This is the only housing of this type in the Riverside area. Most of the housing around the Carrow Road stadium is modern, multi-storey and post-dates the stadium. Therefore it has been optimally placed, landscaped and is not dominated by the stadium.

These are the new flats that have been built on the Norwich City car park:




Apart from the small group of Victorian houses to the East of the stadium the whole of Riverside is ex-indistrial land and has been developed as an urban lifestyle area not unlike Harbourside/Canons Marsh in Bristol. Being about half a mile from the city Centre its positioning is also similar to Harbourside and less like the Memorial stadium. The flats have underground parking for about 80% of the living units.



Above you can see the stadium is surrounded by roads and the river and that the small area of Victorian terraced housing is across the road from the stadium and faces the corner of the stadium. The new blocks of flats are on the old car park which is on the lower edge of this picture.





This is a picture of the area from around 1950 taken from above the city centre looking south. The stadium is in the middle of the picture. Again the small triangle of Victorian houses can be seen just past the stadium on the left. It is also apparent that as late as 1950 this was a predominantly industrial area and would have been in need of regeneration in the latter part of the 20th century. That regeneration has all be done in the context of an existing large professional football stadium.

Logistics

In the period just before a match and just after a match, police close the section of the ring road that goes through Riverside to allow the large number of pedestrians to cross into Riverside on the bridges. The car park associated with the leisure facilities does try to prevent match day parking but this is apparently still an issue. The fact that most cars no longer come into Riverside to park is a real bonus for the residents in the area and since most of their parking is private underground parking they do not have to worry about outsiders taking it at any time. They can also use all of the leisure facilities such as restaurants, bars, cinema complex, bowling alleys, large retail units, night clubs, swimming pool, and gyms within Riverside without the need for a car. As Chris says, things around the stadium are great.

I called Norwich City Council to find out how traffic was managed. When I said I had heard they had a very good match day traffic system in place, they laughed out loud.

Whilst things on Riverside are good, match day traffic is a real problem for the rest of the city. The town centre parking is generally used up by normal shopping traffic even on days without matches so it is not able to handle much additional parking on match days.

The train station does not help with local fans but is close to the stadium and brings fans from Ipswich, Cambridge, Great Yarmouth, London etc.

Because Norwich is quite compact, there are a lot of people who do walk or take the bus into the centre and walk to the stadium. But quite a large proportion of the supporters come from the surrounding area (not unlike Bristol where 30-40% of fans are from "outer or beyond Bristol"). Many of these use the park and rides on the outskirts of the city but these too are usually well used by shoppers and so these can only take a limited number of match day cars especially on Saturdays.

There are seven restricted parking zones within Norwich. An annual resident permit costs £16. These operate on weekdays only and from 8AM to 6:30PM and therefore do not coincide with match times. There is currently no match time parking zone but this is being set up and will be paid for by the football club. This zone will presumably be be in the Lakeham area south of the city centre rather than actually in Riverside.

Many businesses and even the council offices on Martineau Lane offer the use of their car parks for fans.

However the council told me "People park wherever they think they can get away with it. We have a lot of parking on the verges." They are working on a travel plan but this has not been implemented. Closing the ring road at match times has an impact on traffic in the rest of the city. Much of the traffic management is handled with extra policing rather than with infrastructure.

Chris Graham says "Full access to the whole area is only via 2 small, narrow bridges. The access around The Memorial Stadium is far, far better." It is precisely the limited access that makes the situation at Riverside work as cars cannot or do not attempt to come into the area. The vast majority of the housing has been built in the last twenty years with its relation to the stadium a factor in the design and with off street parking facilities also built in from the start. Being relatively near the city centre provides access to some of the public transport and enables many people in the city to walk to the matches.

Beyond the inclusion of a hotel, the overall similarities of the Memorial Stadium and Carrow Road are fairly limited. It would also seem that prosperity in Riverside was good despite the stadium rather than because of it.

There is one final thing to note about Chris Graham's statement. It was e-mailed to Councillor Judith Price who was the Chair of the Development Committee, and it was not sent to the planning officer for the application nor to Democracy services which handle the public statements. I have no idea who Chris Graham is nor do I have the faintest idea how or why he chose to e-mail this statement to Cllr J Price. But the statement is 'suspicious' in that the statement was accepted without an address, and should have been sent to the planning officer responsible for administering the planning application. Judith Price should have informed the sender to re-sent to Kit Stokes and not dealt with it herself - something about councillors being seen to be impartial when dealing with planning applications.