New £121m road will still be built, council says

A new road designed to serve 1,100 new homes in a county will still be built despite the developer pulling out, a council said.

The 3.5km (2.1 miles) West Winch Housing Access Road will connect the A10 and the A47 south of King's Lynn, Norfolk, and is projected to cost £121m.

Hopkins Homes recently announced it was no longer involved in the project to build on land between North Runcton and West Winch.

Graham Plant, the cabinet member for highways, infrastructure and transport on Norfolk County Council, said "this does not affect our plans for the housing access road".

The link road has been planned to enable up to 4,000 new homes to be built and will also serve current residents west Norfolk.

Hopkins Homes had been given planning permission for the first phase of the development in 2024.

King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council said the planning permission was attached to the land not the developer.

Andy Redman, the director in the development team at Savills that is acting on behalf of one of the landowners involved in the project, said: "The landowners are currently in the process of selecting a partner to take on the process and will be happy to confirm progress once matters have been formalised."

Plant said the idea was always to build the road before the homes so the news about the developer's decision to withdraw did not impact the plan.

He said the road would benefit local people in the meantime.

"It will take heavy traffic out of West Winch which is a growing problem.

"This is infrastructure going in before the build which is what everybody asks for and we're doing it," he said.

At a meeting on 2 March to discuss the project, Norfolk County Council confirmed additional funding for the road would be coming from Homes England.

The extra £10.5m would be spent on moving high-pressure gas lines, the cost of which has been much higher than initially projected.

The authority added National Gas Transmission has told it the estimate of £24.5m to move the pipes should be treated as an "upper limit".

Construction was expected to begin in winter 2026 and take between 18 to 24 months.

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