The A11 reopened at 6am Sunday between Thickthorn and Wymondham, 24 hours early, after the bridge lift. National Highways' own pages still said Monday.

The A11 reopened at 6am on Sunday between Thickthorn and Wymondham. National Highways had booked the road to stay shut until 6am on Monday, so it came back a full day early.

The road was closed in both directions from 8pm on Friday so that six bridge beams could be craned over the carriageway. That is 34 hours of closure instead of the 58 hours drivers were told to plan around.

A National Highways spokesman said the lift “went really well”:

“Our bridge beam lifting work to build a bridge as part of the A47/A11 Thickthorn Junction improvements in Norfolk went really well so we’re now working hard to reopen the A11 early. It should be open at 6am [Sunday] morning. Thanks for your patience.”

That statement was published by the Eastern Daily Press, which credited National Highways for its photograph of the reopened road. The square brackets around “Sunday” are the newspaper’s, not ours. National Highways had not put the statement on its own website when we checked.

Two bars comparing the planned A11 closure of 58 hours, from 8pm Friday 18 September to 6am Monday 21 September, with the actual closure of 34 hours, ending at 6am on Sunday 20 September
The weekend as booked and as it happened. Planned times from National Highways' project page and its 7-day closure report.

The official pages still said Monday

We checked National Highways’ own published record at 10.34am on Sunday, four and a half hours after the road reopened. Both sources still said the A11 was shut until Monday.

  • The scheme’s project page still carried its update of 27 August. It reads: “The A11 will be closed in both directions between Thickthorn Junction and Wymondham from 8pm on Friday 18 September, reopening at 6am on Monday 21 September 2026.”
  • The 7-day closure report, the spreadsheet National Highways publishes for the whole network, still listed both A11 carriageways as closed to 06:00 on Monday 21 September. The file was last changed at 3.30pm on Friday, before the work started.

So a driver who did the sensible thing on Sunday morning, and checked the official sources rather than the news, would have been told the road was still shut. National Highways’ own page does warn that “closures can change at short notice”.

What the weekend was for

The closure was not resurfacing. It was to install a bridge that will carry a road that does not exist yet.

National Highways is rebuilding the A47/A11 Thickthorn junction, about three and a half miles south-west of Norwich city centre. The new bridge will carry the future Cantley Lane Link Road, connecting Cantley Lane South to the B1172 Norwich Road at Hethersett. National Highways says the sections could only be lifted with the A11 closed, “for safety reasons”.

In the statement it issued before the weekend, National Highways said the bridge was built off site and brought in for rapid assembly, and that it is the first on its network to use that kind of modular design. It gave the numbers as:

  • six beams, each 100 tonnes and 38 metres long
  • one crane, with a 750-tonne capacity

Alistair Stout, project director for National Highways, said in that statement: “Compared to traditional construction methods, this innovative approach allows more of the bridge to be manufactured off-site, which means we can build more quickly and efficiently, with less overall disruption to motorists, while also reducing future maintenance requirements.” He added: “We will reopen the road as soon as possible once the work is complete over the weekend.”

The wider scheme, as set out on the project page, includes:

  • two new underpasses carrying a single-lane free-flowing link road from the A11 northbound to the A47 eastbound
  • a widened A47 westbound slip road with a dedicated free-flow lane to the A11 southbound
  • the southern section of the roundabout widened from three lanes to four
  • new traffic lights at the junction with the B1172 Norwich Road
  • the removal of the Cantley Lane South direct connections to the A11 and A47 exit slip roads
  • a new footbridge for walkers, cyclists and horse riders about 45 metres east of the existing one, which is to be demolished, with higher railings for horse riders

National Highways says the two underpasses will take around 12,000 vehicles a day off the roundabout, and that the scheme will improve access to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and the Norwich Research Park.

Two finish dates, and two ways of counting the houses

National Highways has published two different answers to the obvious question, and they do not match.

  • Its project page gives the cost as £216m to £239m and the end date as 2028/29.
  • Its statement before the weekend says the project “is set for completion by spring 2028”.

The same is true of the housing the scheme is meant to serve. The project page says around 3,000 new homes are “potentially planned” near the junction. The statement says more than 3,000 homes “are being built” at Cringleford and Wymondham. Planned and being built are not the same thing, and neither document shows the working.

Nothing published by National Highways reconciles the two, so both are given here as they were published.

The scheme has full planning consent. It was granted under The A47/A11 Thickthorn Junction Development Consent Order 2022, corrected by a further order in 2023.

What it means for you

The A11 is open again in both directions. The long diversions are over. Northbound traffic had been sent out to Thetford, east on the A1066 to the A140 and north to the A47. Southbound traffic went the other way round. Lorries had a longer run still, via the A14.

One restriction has not been separately cleared. National Highways also imposed a temporary 7.5-tonne limit on the B1172 Norwich Road between Hethersett and Thickthorn, with local buses keeping access. Its page does not say when that lifts, and it had issued nothing about it when we checked. If you drive a heavy vehicle on that road, check before you set off.

No further closures are published. The newest entry on the project page is dated 27 August and covers nothing after this weekend. Work runs to 2028/29, so more nights and weekends are coming. The 7-day closure report is the place to look, and it is reissued each Friday.

Rail was the other half of the weekend. Buses replaced trains between Norwich and Stowmarket on Saturday and Sunday, affecting every London service. Our Norwich train times to London page has the route. The rest of the week’s road closures in the city are on our Norwich roadworks and travel page.

The places named here

Thickthorn is the interchange where the A47 southern bypass meets the A11, on the south-western edge of the city at Cringleford. Hethersett lies about six miles from the city centre and Wymondham about eight, both to the south-west. The closed stretch ran about five miles between Thickthorn and Wymondham, so most of it was outside Norwich, even though the queues it was designed to avoid would have been the city’s.

Cringleford Parish Council published the closure notice on 10 September, adding that it was “subject to weather delays”. In the event the weather was not the problem, and the work finished ahead of itself rather than behind.

Frequently asked questions

Is the A11 open between Norwich and Wymondham now?

Yes. National Highways reopened it at 6am on Sunday 20 September, a day ahead of the 6am Monday time it had published. The diversions via Thetford, the A1066 and the A140 have gone with it.

Why was it shut in the first place?

To crane six 100-tonne beams over the carriageway for a new bridge at Thickthorn. The bridge will carry the Cantley Lane Link Road, which will join Cantley Lane South to the B1172 Norwich Road at Hethersett. National Highways says the lift could only be done with the road closed.

Is the 7.5-tonne limit on the B1172 Norwich Road lifted?

National Highways has not said. It imposed the limit between Hethersett and Thickthorn for the works and gave no end date, so check before driving a heavy vehicle that way.

When is the next A11 or A47 closure at Thickthorn?

None is published yet. The newest closure notice on the scheme page is dated 27 August and stops at this weekend. The work runs to 2028 or 2029, so more are certain, and the 7-day closure report is reissued every Friday.

When will the junction be finished?

National Highways gives two answers. Its project page says 2028/29. The statement it issued before the weekend says spring 2028.

Sources