RAF Marham personnel parade on St Peter's Street on Monday 14 September. St Peter's Street and part of Bethel Street close 10am to 12.30pm.

Personnel from RAF Marham and the Band of the Royal Air Force Regiment will parade on St Peter’s Street on Monday 14 September, and two city centre roads close for the morning.

The ceremony runs from 11.30am to 12.15pm outside City Hall. Norwich City Council announced it on 7 September and says members of the public are invited.

It marks the opening of Battle of Britain Week. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriff of Norwich will attend alongside veterans and other guests. The current Lord Mayor is Councillor Karen Davis, who represents Town Close ward. The Sheriff is Dave Shraga. Both took up the ceremonial roles at a full council meeting on 19 May, according to the council’s announcement at the time.

The road closures

The council has published these arrangements, and notes that they are subject to change:

  • St Peter’s Street, closed from 10am to 12.30pm
  • Bethel Street, from its junction with St Peter’s Street as far as The Forum car park, closed for the same period
  • Access to The Forum car park will be maintained throughout

The closure window opens 90 minutes before the ceremony starts and lasts 15 minutes after it ends. If you drive into the city on Monday morning, that is the part to plan around: the parade itself is 45 minutes, the road closure is two and a half hours.

Timings and road closures for the Battle of Britain parade in Norwich on Monday 14 September 2026
The times and the closures, from the council's own announcement.

Freedom of the City

The part of the ceremony worth turning up for is a formality with some age behind it. The RAF will exercise its Freedom of the City. The council explains that the honour gives a military organisation the privilege of marching through the city. An RAF officer will present a scroll on the City Hall steps to signify the right to exercise it.

The Lord Mayor called it “a particular privilege to welcome RAF personnel to Norwich as they exercise their historic Freedom of the City”. The tradition, the announcement adds, “reflects the strong and enduring relationship between our city and the armed forces”.

RAF Marham, in west Norfolk, is the RAF’s F-35 Lightning station. Its own station page records more than 3,600 service personnel, civil servants and contractors working there. Three Lightning squadrons arrived in turn:

  • 617 Squadron, the Dambusters, in 2018, the first UK Lightning squadron
  • 207 Squadron in 2019
  • 809 Naval Air Squadron, which stood up in December 2023

The same page carries a detail that fits the occasion. Marham first opened in 1916, to defend Norfolk against raids by German Zeppelin airships in the First World War. It was mothballed between the wars and reopened in 1937.

What the week commemorates

The RAF’s own account of the Battle of Britain gives numbers the council’s release does not.

  • 2,945 RAF aircrew faced the Luftwaffe from July to October 1940. They became known as ‘the Few’
  • 544 of them were killed during the battle
  • 312 RAF personnel were killed on the ground, at stations that were themselves bombing targets
  • volunteers came from 13 nations, and roughly a fifth of the RAF’s aircrew in the battle were not British
  • at its height the RAF had 749 fighter aircraft available against 2,550 Luftwaffe aircraft
  • the average age of an RAF pilot in 1940 was 20, and in August 1940 fighter pilot training took two weeks

The RAF sets ‘the Few’ against what it calls ‘the Many’: the air raid wardens, firefighters, Home Guard members and factory workers behind them. Around 2,000 Hurricanes and Spitfires were built between June and October 1940.

What it means for you

  • The ceremony is free and open to the public. It is outside City Hall on St Peter’s Street, 11.30am to 12.15pm on Monday 14 September.
  • Do not drive to St Peter’s Street between 10am and 12.30pm. The Forum car park stays reachable; charges and the other 12 council car parks are on our parking in Norwich page. Note that the council’s car park tariffs change on 21 September.
  • The council says the closure arrangements are subject to change, so check before you travel. Longer term works and closures are on our Norwich roadworks and travel page.
  • The council’s notice does not name any diverted bus routes. First Bus Norfolk and Suffolk listed no St Peter’s Street diversion on its service updates page when we checked on 10 September, and Konectbus’s own updates page returns an error to us, so we cannot confirm what happens to Konectbus services that morning.

Sources