The Northern Distributor Road - The issue that separates the haves and have-nots

The Northern Distributor Road (NDR) is an often talked about issue in Norfolk, and it gets people on both sides of the argument very passionate. However, it strikes me that those who are in favour of it are nearly always the "have-nots" and those against are the "haves". Let me explain.

In Norwich, there are some who have good regular public transport. Some of those people in Norwich cannot understand why people in the countryside need a car, after all, "Why can't they use public transport ?". Those country dwelling "have nots" also don't have services on their door steps, they don't have a wide array of shops nearby, garages, pubs, restaurants, Post Offices, cinemas or theatres. These are things that the "have's" have got.

So why is it then that the "haves" in the city fail to understand the need for the "have nots" to own a car, to drive in to the City, or indeed, to by-pass the city if they need to get to the other side.

Some in the city who oppose the NDR claim there is no need for it. If this is the case, why is there already an unoffical NDR already running from Spixworth (down Crostwick Lane), through St Faith's, Horsford, Drayton and Costessey ? Those who oppose the NDR seek to close their eyes to the facts.

The other argument they give is that when new reoads are built, they get more traffic using them. My answer is, that is why the new road has been built. After all, if there was no traffic need for the road then it would not have been built in the first place. I simply cannot buy in to the "Green" view that when a new road is built people choose to go out and have some pointless destination-less drive on it simply because it is a new road. Driving is far too expensive a thing to do these days to do that.

I get fed up with "Greens", and I mean that in the political sense, not simply environmentalists, who seek to lecture the people who live in the rest of the County as to why the NDR is not needed whilst they nejoy all the fruits and benefits of having everything on their doorsteps in Norwich. Of course they don't want the NDR, they represent innner city council wards where the NDR is not an issue.

The fact remains that outside of the city, and in particular this has been shown in local election results, those who oppose the NDR have been absolutely trounced, time and time again. They claim that there is no support for the NDR, but my experience of living in Horsford, Taverham and Fakenham is very much the opposite.