Your emails and letters in response to the current issues in our Forum • Add your views on these issues - email
Street Clutter
I'm glad I'm not alone in noticing this blight on the streetscape.
They can be hazardous to the able-bodied too; there are some outside a pub on Queens Road (by City Road) where two people cannot pass on the pavement without one having to step into the road.
R C
Thirteen photographs were attached emphasising the point of this letter. Ed
Enhancing and improving Magdalen Street
During the Magdalen Street open day in October the area under the flyover was used very effectively allowing bands to perform - the area is completely undercover so protected from rain and I believe this area could be used effectively as a market stall area/performing arts arena.
Recently The Lanes has been promoted to encourage business to the area and I believe something similar is needed for the Magdalen Street area and I think a regular market perhaps at weekends using both the area under the flyover and the top end of Magdalen Street from The Cat and Fiddle PH opposite the chemist to the traffic lights at Artichoke PH (closing this to traffic on Sundays which would be very easy to do making use of the one way system and other roads close by to re-route traffic).
I would envisage something along the lines of "Magdalen Market" would catch on and perhaps encourage vintage clothing stalls/ethnic catering stalls/craft stalls to create something totally different and unique to Norwich and to the area of concern. I believe the graffiti should be encouraged as long as it is done in an artistic fashion - ie graffiti art.
London has the Camden market, which is a real tourist and local attraction, and would it not be great to have something similar in Norwich? Magdalen Street already is home to several antique/second hand furniture/vintage clothes shops and these shops could either be encouraged to open Sundays (if they do not already) and invited to have stall space if required - I believe it would enhance their business as people would be drawn to the area specifically for this type of stall/shop and then it would not affect local traders by way of competition but would bring more people to the area on Sundays and naturally increase their footfall.
I really see this as an opportunity to create something different, positive and unique to the area and to Norwich to further encourage tourism and culture - ethnic food stalls would be a lovely touch of colour and fragrance. I so hope that others will see this potential. I strongly believe this idea if implemented would uplift the area making it a fashionable part of Norwich again offering something different to the Lanes and the city centre shopping area.
SP Norwich
The Spread of the Night Time Economy
in Norwich City Centre
The issues involved in the late night activities policy in the Local Plan are complex and are certainly not just about the disturbance to residents, although that is obviously one contentious aspect. The whole policy, which I was involved in drafting when I worked at City Hall, is based upon a study carried out in the late 1990's as part of the North Sea Interregional grouping of the EU with a number of other towns and cities - we visited Lincoln, Wolverhampton, Trondheim and other towns to study their approach.
There is clearly a need for review of the impact of the policy from a number of points of view. There is also some misunderstanding of the policy. The late night activities zone, for example, included Upper King Street and Tombland but not Queen Street, where it appears you have now identified a problem. There is also the view of the operators of the night clubs etc, who were affected by the structural problems in former night clubs at Riverside and this resulted in a locational shift in activities, which could not have been foreseen at the time. From the point of view of developers, residential development has become a very important element in most schemes in the city centre, because it enhances values - and it appears the policy has been less effective than it should be in deterring residential use within or on the edge of its boundaries. This was always problematic, as developers would argue that residents could tell what kind of an area they were moving into. From the viewpoint of other arts and leisure activities, there does appear to have been some successful integration of late night and arts activities (e.g. the N&N Festival's late shows). Perhaps the integration in activities at the other end of the evening - i.e. between 6.00 and 8.00 pm - has been less in evidence.
The major change, however, has been the introduction of the new licensing regulations and the spread of relatively late opening hours (after midnight) for pubs elsewhere. It appears to me that this is the source of the issues in Queen Street and of course could not have been foreseen in the study or the LP policy. I am not aware whether satisfactory liaison arrangements exist now between Planning and Licensing departments and whether their decisions manage to maintain a degree of consistency between these disciplines. This was a clear necessity identified from the Interreg study that I have referred to and arrangements were made at that time for such liaison - do those continue? That should be an area that I would urge the Society to focus on, since no amount of policy development and tweaking will be successful, if the different professional disciplines do not recognise the same issues as being important, or interpret them in totally different ways.
S.O. April 2011
Our flat in Rouen Road looks out across the Wensum valley. For some time we have been feeling that the Norwich night scene has been allowed to go unchecked and it now causes serious disturbance, especially at the weekends. The noise made by people outside on the street is the worst aspect and in summertime it goes on until around 3 am.
It's not that Riverside is an inappropriate place for such activity - it was designed as such - but in recent years it has been attracting more and more rowdy elements that make the football crowd seem like sheep by comparison! As the Norwich Society has pointed out, the increase in the number of dwellings in the inner city has made any intensification of the night-time economy rather problematic - and there is more to come, at St Mary's Wharf and other sites.
A further factor justifying a re-examination of the policy and a possible retrenchment in planning and licensing approvals is the demographic change that has become apparent. Many of these properties are now occupied by people with young children or older couples who need a good night's sleep.
There are large numbers of unsold flats in the area which, because of the rise in prices and poor returns for landlords, are now more likely to go eventually to people who are looking to become more settled than the young professional generation for whom they were planned and for whom the general Norwich business economy has run out of steam.
The sheer proliferation of venues has transformed Prince of Wales Road out of all recognition and it is now an unpleasant place to go after about 8 pm. Notwithstanding the noise and disturbance, city centre residents don't care for the constant reminders of the "night-time economy" - continuous police & ambulance presence and wailing sirens, mess, litter, vomit and urine on the street, heavyweight door protection every few yards, graffiti and fly-posters defacing property and street furniture, spot & flood lighting and signage out of character with a historic city centre . . . and so on.
And these manifestations will presumably spread across the city to all the other locations where the late-night activity is intensifying. Queen Street/Bank Plain has deteriorated and the Red Lion Street/Orford Hill area is going in that direction and becoming quite unsavoury.
It would be easy to be reactionary and seek to stifle what is obviously popular and pleasurable for the people of Norfolk but it is time to recognise that the centre of Norwich is now a residential area and should be treated as such by the planning and licensing authorities. We don't want a ghost town but there comes a point when commercial exploitation of the young people's economy has a detrimental effect on the general prosperity and mixed cultural life of the city, the more so if affluent people feel driven out and eventually abandon the city centre. A multitude of bars and night-clubs chasing the market in a downward direction would poison the essence of this great city.
JCW
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