July County Councillor’s Report

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County Councillor’s Report

July 2025

Parish Partnership applications

You should have received notification of the latest round of Parish Partnership funding. The application deadline is December. Don’t forget that often PP applications can be combined with funding from the Local Member Highways Fund that I control. If you have any schemes that you want to fund using the LMHF, please do let me know.

Towns Fund

I know all of the communities I represent are villages but the survival of towns like North Walsham and Cromer is really important to our area. If you are involved with a group that operates in the town, or if you have a new idea to bring people into the town, you might want to look at the new Towns Fund scheme to get support for your idea.

Projects that are aimed at increasing sales and footfall in market towns will be able to apply for grants of between £1,000 and £5,000 through an initiative being rolled out across the whole of Norfolk.

Organisations and businesses are being invited to apply for the Love Your Market Town fund’s Pride of Place grants to fund ideas designed to encourage people to visit and shop in their local towns more frequently. The scheme is supported by Norfolk County Council and the district councils and applicants have until 31 August to submit their ideas.

Once ideas have been submitted, they will be reviewed by an independent panel and applicants notified of the outcome by Tuesday 30 September.

Applications are welcome from any local groups or business, but any activity must be a brand-new idea and should support multiple areas or services within a Norfolk market town. There is no limit to the kind of activities that can be funded but the idea must have a link to creating interest or increasing footfall in town centres.

For more information, and to express interest in bidding for a grant, please visit Love Your Market Town grant – Pride of Place funding – New Anglia Growth Hub

Norwich Western Link Road

I’m sure you will have seen the press coverage of the latest developments with the Norwich Western Link Road.

The County Council has published a new report into options which you can read here – page 5 of the 7th July County Cabinet report paper.

My own view is that the original idea was a good one – to complete the NDR and make a full ‘outer ring road’ for the City but costs have spiralled and the Council should have given up on the plans a long time ago when it became clear that they were not going to get through. Spending another £1.5 million of public money to look at alternative options at this stage just feels like throwing more good money after bad.

Disabled Parking Bays

Earlier this month I was sent the following by Norfolk County Council (NCC). It is an NCC announcement that I have included in full so please note it’s not my suggestion that people contact Parish Councils!:

NCC had previously provided some disabled parking bays outside individual homes.  However, this is no longer the case as individual bays often caused confusion over who can use it, as residents considered the bay to be solely for their use.

Disabled bays are only provided as part of wider traffic management, parking schemes, travel hubs or in any public realm regeneration scheme, and are typically sited in close proximity to shops and other local amenities, facilities and services, and will only be introduced if there is a clear identified need and broad support. There are no set rules as to the level of support that would be needed to promote them.   Each case would be considered on its own merits, but the use would need the support of the Local Member and district, town or parish council.

For these reasons, requests for disabled parking as part of a wider traffic management scheme should be directed to local Town/Parish Councils or County Councillors in the first instance, who can help identify and represent the needs of local communities.

Ed Maxfield