Weston Homes, in conjunction with landowner Columbia Threadneedle, has received a Resolution to Grant planning permission from Norwich City Council for their proposals to regenerate Anglia Square in central Norwich into a £300 million mixed use urban quarter.
Once a ‘Section 106’ legal agreement between the applicants and the Council is completed, planning permission can be issued. The new development will cover more than 1.2 million square feet, providing new homes, retail premises, leisure amenities, public artwork and new public realm.
One of the biggest urban renewal projects outside of Greater London, the redeveloped Anglia Square will deliver a series of striking buildings designed around two “Covent Garden style” landscaped plazas, linked by new high quality landscaped public spaces including pedestrian streets, offering cycle linkages across the site, complete with new trees and planted areas. There would also be extensive communal green squares and central courtyards for residents of the scheme.
The regenerated Anglia Square will create over 1,200 much needed new homes, including stylish one and two bedroom apartments and penthouses for private sale, alongside circa 120 on-site affordable homes for local households on lower incomes.
The proposals for Anglia Square will give Norwich a new northern city centre destination for shopping, leisure and entertainment, with high quality retail floorspace allowing for 40 glass fronted retail units, including an anchor food store.
Alongside this there will be a new 200 bed hotel with a range of facilities including a roof level bar and restaurant, offering panoramic views over the city centre, and a new leisure quarter, centred on a new ground floor multi-screen cinema. Surrey Chapel will be provided with a brand new £2.5 million home within the development.
Creating an exciting new future for Norwich, Anglia Square will have striking architecture in the form of high quality buildings with expanses of glazing, varied balcony design, rooftop terraces and feature detailing to the facades.
There will be shops, restaurants and leisure at ground level, with homes above, with those on the uppermost floors offering panoramic views over Norwich City Centre. At night lighting will illuminate the new public realm to create inviting spaces in an environmentally sensitive manner.
There will be a replacement multi-storey car park providing 600 shopper parking spaces, and the project allows for 75% of the homes to have residential parking. There will also be public “play trail” artwork, helping to create a “Covent Garden” style ambience, allowing both adults and children to enjoy the public open spaces, with details to be agreed with the City Council.
The project will open up new views of the Anglican Cathedral and St Augustine’s Church and bring various benefits to Norwich. The new Anglia Square represents a substantial level of private sector investment into Norwich, with the mixture of uses generating new Council Tax revenue, new construction and permanent employment opportunities, and New Homes Bonus payments over four years.
The new scheme also facilitates space for community use, including affordable business space, and allows for provisions to reduce parking ratio in later development phases, subject to the results of monitoring.
Bob Weston, Chairman & Chief Executive of Weston Homes, says: “Anglia Square is a major £300m urban renewal project which will position Norwich for the future and provide a new mixed use destination for the city.
This is one of the biggest urban renewal projects outside of Greater London, bringing striking new buildings, “Covent Garden” style public spaces, inward investment and job creation.
Norwich is a Cathedral city and the county town of Norfolk, located on the River Wensum in East Anglia, approximately 100 miles (161km) north-east of London. An area steeped in history, it has Anglo Saxon, Norman and Medieval roots and is famed for Norwich Cathedral. It is also an area rich in culture, boasting a number of theatres and museums, and in 2012 was designated England’s first UNESCO City of Literature.
Norwich has excellent transport links, with travel to London via train taking under two hours from Norwich Railway Station. Norwich stands north of the A47 (bypassed to the south of the city), which connects it with Great Yarmouth to the east, and Kings Lynn and Peterborough to the west. Norwich is linked to Cambridge via the A11, which leads to the M11 motorway for London and the M25.