Norwich Roadworks: A11 Closed All Weekend 18-21 September

Two authorities dig up Norwich roads and neither of them is the city council. Norfolk County Council is the highway authority for every street in the city. National Highways looks after the A47 and the A11. The city council does bins, parking and planning. Knowing which one to check saves a lot of time.

Everything below comes from the authorities’ own notices, re-checked on 7 September 2026.

What is closed in Norwich now

These orders have been made and are in force. The dates are the ones the council published. Every order can legally run to a much later backstop date if the work overruns, and that date is given in brackets.

The Thorpe Hamlet drainage job is the one that catches residents out, because most of it is a parking ban rather than a closure. Short lengths of St Leonards Road, Marion Road, Florence Road and Beatrice Road are shut to vehicles, with pedestrian access kept. On top of that, longer stretches of St Leonards Road, Marion Road, Florence Road, Beatrice Road, Quebec Road and Hill House Road are under a ban on parking, stopping, loading and unloading on both sides of the carriageway until 30 October. The signed way round is Rosary Road, Thorpe Road, Telegraph Lane East, Telegraph Lane West and Quebec Road eastbound, and the reverse plus Carrow Road and Clarence Road westbound.

Onley Street is now in its last three weeks, on the published dates. The gas main work in the Golden Triangle is booked to 25 September, and the diversion is Gloucester Street and Unthank Road.

Starting this week

Norfolk County Council published its intention to make these orders on 28 August. A published intention is not the same as an order that has been made, so treat the dates as the plan rather than the record, and expect the signs on site to be the final word.

Alexandra Road is the big one. Anglian Water is replacing lead water pipes in two phases, and the closure is booked from 7 September to 13 November 2026, with a backstop of 13 May 2027:

• Phase A: Alexandra Road from Dereham Road to Stafford Street. Diversion via Dereham Road, Gladstone Street and Stafford Street.
• Phase B: Alexandra Road from Stafford Street to Earlham Road. Diversion via Earlham Road, Gladstone Street and Stafford Street.

The notice adds that the two phases are not expected to run at the same time, so one end of the road should stay open throughout. That is ten weeks of work in the middle of Heigham, between two of the busiest routes out of the city.

The rest of the week’s proposed orders are short:

• Hansard Road footpath, the path at the rear of 48 to 60 running to Burges Road, closed for a meter exchange, 08:00 to 16:00 on 8 September.
• Burton Road, from Vulcan Road North for 10m eastwards, manhole repairs, overnight 19:00 to 06:00 on 9 to 10 September. Diversion via Vulcan Road North, Spar Road and Vulcan Road South.
• St Augustines Street, Rose Yard to Sussex Street, utility cover repairs, overnight 19:00 to 06:00 on 9 to 10 September. The signed diversion is a long way round: St Crispins Road, Barn Road, Dereham Road, Old Palace Road, Heigham Street, Mile Cross Road and Drayton Road.
• Allens Lane, north-west of Newmarket Road, manhole repairs, 07:30 to 17:00 on 7 September.

Booked for two years: Dibden Road

One proposed order stands out for its length. Dibden Road, from 50m east of Crome Road for 40m eastwards, is set to close for building development works from 21 September 2026 to 17 October 2028. The notice gives no alternative route, and Norfolk County Council is the promoter, making the order under both section 14(1) and section 15(2) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Two years is long even for a development closure, so it is worth watching what goes up there.

On the edge of the city

• Hethersett Lane, Colney, from Braymeadow Lane for 800m northwards, is proposed to close for footway reconstruction from 7 September to 24 December 2026, with a backstop of 6 March 2028. The signed route is Watton Road, the A47, Norwich Road and Colney Lane. That is the road network around the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and the research park, so allow extra time if you drive to an appointment.
• Blind Lane, Newton St Faith, west of Old Norwich Road, gas main replacement, 7 to 25 September.
• North Walsham Road, Sprowston is closed until 13 November, nearly twelve weeks in total, for high voltage cable laying. Diversion via Barkers Lane, Cozens Hardy Road and Edwards Road.

The A11 shuts completely, 18 to 21 September

This is the one to diary, and it is now under a fortnight away. The A11 will be closed in both directions between Thickthorn junction and Wymondham from 20:00 on Friday 18 September, reopening at 06:00 on Monday 21 September. Cranes will lift in the bridge sections that carry the future Cantley Lane Link Road, and National Highways says that can only be done with the road shut. The date was still in place when the scheme page was last updated on 27 August.

What it means in practice:

• Every side road onto that stretch of the A11 closes for the weekend.
• A temporary 7.5 tonne restriction applies on the B1172 Norwich Road between Hethersett and Thickthorn. Local buses still get through.
• Residents of Cantley Lane South will be escorted through by traffic marshals.
• Cars heading north are signed off the A11 at Thetford bypass, east on the A1066 to Diss, north on the A140, then onto the A47 at the Norwich southern bypass. Southbound reverses that from the A140 Ipswich Road.
• Lorries get a wider route, via the A14 between Newmarket and Stowmarket, then the A140.

The A47 and A11 work at Thickthorn

The A47 Thickthorn junction scheme, where the A47 meets the A11 on the south-west edge of the city, is a National Highways project costing between £216m and £239m. It is digging two underpasses and building free-flowing connections between the two roads, plus a new Cantley Lane Link Road out to the B1172 Norwich Road. National Highways says the finished junction will take around 12,000 vehicles a day off the roundabout. Completion is given as 2028/29.

Where the traffic management stands now:

• The A47 eastbound has two lanes, one of them running by Thickthorn roundabout and rejoining without merging.
• To pay for that capacity, the A47 westbound is a single lane. National Highways switches the contraflow in October 2026, after which westbound gets two lanes and eastbound drops to one, through to autumn 2027.
• Cantley Lane South is fully closed just north of the railway line, with no through route to the A47 westbound off-slip. Access is kept from the A11 exit slip and Station Lane.

City car park charges change on 21 September

Not a closure, but it lands on the same day the A11 reopens and it will change what a trip into Norwich costs. Norwich City Council has published a statutory notice varying its car park fees from 21 September 2026. Most daily tariffs move by 10p to 50p, season tickets rise by about 3.2 per cent, and Rose Lane gains a weekend all-day rate it did not have before. Our full breakdown, car park by car park, is in what Norwich car parks will cost from 21 September.

What it means for you

If you drive in from the south-west, the weekend of 18 September is the one that will cost you an hour if you ignore it. If you live off Dereham Road or Earlham Road, Alexandra Road is booked shut for ten weeks from today, though only one phase at a time. If you live in Thorpe Hamlet, the parking ban around St Leonards Road runs to the end of October and it is enforceable. If you are driving to the hospital from the west, Hethersett Lane is proposed to close until Christmas Eve.

For anything that has appeared since these notices, including the water, gas and broadband holes that never reach a statutory notice, the live map is the only source that keeps up.

Park and ride is the reliable way in

Norwich has six park and ride sites and 4,567 spaces between them. Parking on site is free; you pay only for the bus.

Fares are £3 an adult, £2 for 5 to 19 year olds and concessions, £4 for two people and £5 for a group of up to five. Journeys into the centre take 12 to 20 minutes.

Four things that catch people out:

• Costessey does not go to the city centre. It is the biggest site of the six and Norfolk County Council states plainly that the service does not run into town. Its buses serve the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and the UEA, Monday to Friday only.
• The hospital is not Costessey’s alone. The council also lists route 512 from the Airport site to the Norfolk and Norwich, by way of Hellesdon, Larkman Lane and the university.
• Postwick runs at half the frequency of the others, every 30 minutes on weekdays and hourly on Sundays. The other five drop to every 30 minutes on a Sunday.
• Overnight parking is not permitted at any site. If you come back after the last bus the entry barrier is closed, though you can still drive your car out.

Sprowston has a café, open six days a week from 07:00 to 15:30, and hosts a car boot sale on Sundays. The site gets busy but the buses still run. Airport and Harford have electric vehicle chargers; the Airport site has four.

For anything beyond the city, the station car park holds only 70 cars, so park and ride is often the better start to a train journey to London as well. If you are coming in for the day rather than commuting out, what there is to do is mostly within ten minutes’ walk of where the park and ride buses drop you.

The Norwich Western Link, and where it actually stands

The proposed link between the A47 and Broadland Northway on the west side of the city is often talked about as though it is being built. It is not.

Norfolk County Council withdrew its planning application in January 2025, after it could not resolve an objection from Natural England about barbastelle bats in the woodland west of Norwich. The scheme as designed was a 3.9 mile dual carriageway with a viaduct over the River Wensum.

The council is now running options assessment work costing £1.43 million, of which the Department for Transport has agreed in principle to fund £960,000. The options on the table include minor improvements to the existing road network, public transport and active travel measures, improvements to the existing B road from Wood Lane to Lenwade, and possible new single or dual carriageway routes. The council’s own page says it is “highly unlikely” that a dual carriageway route or a Wensum viaduct as previously proposed would be acceptable.

The council intends to consult publicly on a shortlist and report to cabinet in 2026, and says it may recommend a preferred option at that point. As of 7 September neither the shortlist nor the consultation had been published. So the honest summary is that there is no consented Western Link, no route and no start date.

Where to check before you set out

• Statutory closures: Norfolk County Council publishes every temporary traffic order in the local press and on the Public Notice Portal. That is the primary record: exact road, exact extent, dates, reason and diversion. It is where the closures above come from.
• Everything else, including utilities: the council points to the one.network roadworks map, searchable by road name or area. Most of the short-notice holes in a Norwich street are a water, gas or broadband job, and this is where they appear first.
• The A47 and A11: these are National Highways roads, so county council pages will not list them. The A47 Thickthorn scheme page carries the current traffic management and planned closures.
• Enquiries: the county council’s streetworks team takes questions at streetworks@norfolk.gov.uk or 0344 800 8020.

Frequently asked questions

What roads are closed in Norwich right now?

Onley Street and Leicester Street are shut for gas main replacement until 25 September. Alexandra Road is booked to close in two phases from 7 September to 13 November for lead pipe replacement. Short lengths of St Leonards Road, Marion Road, Florence Road and Beatrice Road in Thorpe Hamlet are closed for drainage work until 30 October, with a parking ban on several neighbouring roads.

When is the A11 closed at Thickthorn?

The A11 closes in both directions between Thickthorn junction and Wymondham from 20:00 on Friday 18 September 2026, reopening at 06:00 on Monday 21 September, so that bridge sections can be craned into place.

How long is Alexandra Road closed for?

The published dates are 7 September to 13 November 2026, in two phases that are not expected to overlap. The order allows the work to run to 13 May 2027 if it overruns.

Who is responsible for roadworks in Norwich?

Norfolk County Council is the highway authority for every road in the city except the A47 and A11, which are National Highways roads. Norwich City Council does not maintain roads.

Is the Norwich Western Link being built?

No. The planning application was withdrawn in January 2025 over an unresolved Natural England objection about barbastelle bats. Norfolk County Council is now assessing options, including options that are not a new road, and has no consented route or start date.

How much does Norwich park and ride cost?

£3 an adult, £2 for 5 to 19 year olds and concessions, £4 for two people and £5 for a group of up to five. Parking at the site is free.

Which Norwich park and ride is best for the hospital?

Costessey, on Long Lane, is the dedicated site for the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and the UEA, and its buses do not run into the city centre at all. Norfolk County Council also lists route 512 to the hospital from the Airport site.

Sources

• Norwich temporary traffic regulation orders, Norfolk County Council, 28 August 2026 for Alexandra Road, Allens Lane, Burton Road, Dibden Road, the Hansard Road footpath and St Augustines Street, and for the made order covering St Leonards Road, Marion Road, Florence Road, Beatrice Road, Quebec Road and Hill House Road.
• Norfolk temporary traffic regulation orders, 28 August 2026 for Hethersett Lane in Colney, Blind Lane in Newton St Faith and the made order for Old Norwich Road.
• Norwich temporary traffic regulation orders, 7 August 2026 for Onley Street and Leicester Street, and 31 July 2026 for All Saints Green.
• Norfolk temporary traffic regulation orders, 21 August 2026 for North Walsham Road in Sprowston, and 14 August 2026 for the 30mph limit on Reepham Road in Drayton.
• A47 Thickthorn junction near Norwich, National Highways, update of 27 August 2026, for the scheme cost, the 12,000 vehicles a day figure, the current lane arrangements, the October 2026 contraflow switch, the 18 to 21 September A11 closure, the diversion routes, the 7.5 tonne B1172 restriction and the 2028/29 completion date.
• Norwich City Council (Variation in Car Parks Fees and Charges) Notice 2026, dated 21 August 2026, for the 21 September change to car park charges.
• Park and Ride sites, Travel Norfolk for the six sites, addresses, space counts, frequencies, the café hours and the overnight parking rule, and Park and Ride, Travel Norfolk for the fares and route 512.
• About the Norwich Western Link, Norfolk County Council and New options assessment work for Norwich Western Link, 27 June 2025, for the withdrawn planning application, the bat objection, the £1.43m options work and the £960,000 DfT contribution.

Roadworks move. A temporary traffic order states an anticipated date but can legally run to a much later end date, and start dates slip. Everything above was checked against the authorities’ own notices on 7 September 2026; check the live map before you set out.