Objective 4: Enhancing Norfolk's quality of life

Summary of Objective

This has a clear priority on climate change, reducing carbon, and improving air quality. Work to find new opportunities to improve quality of place is ongoing and a range of green infrastructure projects are being developed and funding is being sought.

Policies

• Policy 11:  When making changes and improvements to our transport network, and in working with users on how they choose to use the transport network, we will seek to understand the consequences of the decisions on meeting the collective challenge of protecting and improving our global environment to meet the environmental policy target of working towards carbon neutrality 
• Policy 12: Our priority for tackling air quality will be to take action to improve air quality, including investigating vehicular restrictions or charging, where air quality falls below the threshold for Air Quality Management Areas. We will also embrace new ways of monitoring air quality to inform interventions, including in other areas, where this is deemed necessary 
• Policy 13:  We will seek to improve quality of place, conserving and enhancing our built and historic environments, when we take action to improve the transport network 

Objective 4: Delivery Highlights

• Norfolk County Council estate emissions fell 9% compared to the previous year and they are now 61% lower than they were in 2016/17. The drop over the past year has been in large part due to the success of our programme to update our streetlights with energy efficient LED bulbs. This has helped cut carbon from our streetlighting by 19% year-on-year with the added benefit of saving energy costs. 
• Transport for Norwich - Work is currently underway looking at the network hierarchy in the Greater Norwich area, alongside developing a parking strategy and a pipeline of feasibility schemes to take advantage of any funding opportunities. A scope for work on public transport connections in south west Norwich and active travel in north east Norwich, has been completed and agreed. 
• The £32M Transforming Cities grant has now been spent on improving walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport along key corridors in the city. Notable highlights that have been delivered in 24/25 are improvements to the Heartsease Roundabout and new bus lanes along with a travel hub on the A1074 Dereham Road corridor. 
• We have been working closely with Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk (BCKLWN) and Great Yarmouth Borough Council (GYBC) on the King's Lynn Transport Strategy and Great Yarmouth Transport Strategy, which were started in 2024-25, with the development of a long list of transport interventions that was derived from the Issues and Opportunities work and stakeholder feedback. 
• The procurement of additional air quality monitors is being explored through the air quality work funded by LTP, following localised trials.   
• Worked closely with BCKLWN Conservation team which yielded further work on road alignment around Southgates as part of the King's Lynn Sustainable Transport and Regeneration Scheme (STARS) 
• The STARS project has been reconsidered in light of cost increases above the initial Levelling Up Fund (LUF) funding secured in 2022. As a result, it is now proposed that we revise the scope of STARS to something that is affordable, which will be agreed with Department for Transport. 
• Work to embed carbon assessments into scheme prioritisation and development work to inform 2024-25 programme. These assessments consider their impact across the range of LTP objectives. 
• Worked with Transport East on their carbon tools, which have been used for Quantified Carbon Analysis. This will be developed during 2025 alongside adoption of guidance to assess carbon as part of the delivery of each project. 
• 76 diesel buses operating around Norwich have been replaced with brand new electric buses by FirstBus between 2023 and 2025, with support from Norfolk County Council including securing funding from the Zero Emission Bus Regional Area fund. This number represents over half of FirstBus' fleet operating in Norwich. 
• Active Travel England (ATE) funding through the Capability and Ambition Fund has allowed the delivery of training to staff that deliver services such as sustainable transport schemes to people in Norfolk. Training includes Healthy Streets behaviour change and training on various tools for assessing routes for active travel. In 2024-25 Healthy streets training was delivered to 84 delegates.     

Work for next period

We will continue to work towards the Objective 4 target to achieve net zero carbon emissions from transport by 2050. Data from 2021 (most recent) shows a slight reduction in carbon emissions from transport reducing to 1,714.9 ktCO2. More recent data is yet to be released but will be monitored and responded to as it emerges. 

Drafts of the King's Lynn Transport Strategy and Great Yarmouth Transport Strategy will go out to public consultation in Autumn 2025 aiming to take the strategies to Cabinet in March 2026 to be adopted.  

We will continue to support district partners with air quality work through the Countywide Air Quality group and other discussions, including providing input to any annual reports they are required to produce.   

Unfortunately the Zero Emission Transport City initiative launched by Department for Transport (DfT) is not currently being progressed by DfT but we continue to seek out opportunities for new funding to support low carbon travel. 

In 2025-26 we hope to be able to arrange training for around 75+ delegates, with hopes this could rise dramatically if digital training is rolled out.