Today, Norwich is a long way away from the emerging map of English super-cities, assuming we think proximity to high speed rail lines is a key criterion:
In fact, that schematic doesn't show the half of it -- here's southern-ish England showing existing rail lines and the proposed HS2 route:
Note those times: Birmingham, substantially further from London than Norwich, can be reached in 1 hour 24 minutes today; Norwich is more than two hours away. Birmingham has four trains an hour, Norwich one.
Forgive me: my international readers may have no idea of the geography (and why should they?). Norwich is in the county of Norfolk, which is marked red on this map:
Although it's worse than that, since Norwich is squished over on the eastern side of Norfolk, even further from the action -- it's certainly not on the way to anywhere much:
Oh, you can find Holt on that map if you want (that's the location of Old Town clothing, about which I was banging on yesterday).
In the late nineteenth century Norwich's position didn't much matter since there was a pretty comprehensive network of railway lines:
But let's look at the twenty-first century equivalent of the rail network -- here's the motorway network in East Anglia:
Er... The old joke used to be "what motorway is closest to Norwich?". The answer given was "the Amsterdam ring road". I don't think that's true, but confirmation came a few days back of the absolute isolation of Norwich with the government announcement of the construction of a stretch of dual carriageway on the A11 -- until it is finished, Norwich will remain the largest city in England that is not connected by motorway or even dual carriageway to the rest of the country.
A scene from happier times -- the 1970s at Norwich's Thorpe railway station:
I'm in two minds about all this: HS2 will help bridge the North-South divide in the UK, but there is a risk it will create a new isolation for those areas in East Anglia and the West Country, which both look a long way away from the connectivity offered by the emerging HS network. Should that matter?
3 comments:
Are there any economic or other practical reasons for this slighting of Norfolk or is it some political retribution?
It is largly historic Norwich was a processing centre centre for what was a massive export industry in the late middle ages early modern period. However it isn't near the the fast running streams or deposits of coal and iron which fuelled the 'Industrial Revolution' (a contencious term amongst historians).
Although it has the most highest levels of child poverty in the East of England it also has a reasonable financial sector and research business with a University. So bridging the North South divide is probably more urgent.
That said the sooner the A11 is dualled the better as the time it takes to get elsewhere the worst thing about living in this 'fine city'.
I thought I heard something a while ago about the possible upgrading of the GEML to work with 125mph tilting trains? Not sure what happened about that.
So long as the Mk3s don't get replaced by penydildos or such like I'd say that wasn't a bad idea. Running speed on the GEML are still pretty relaxed, even the "express" services stop at many intermediate stations and the rolling stock isn't the quickest to dispatch.
That said I think the relative inaccessibility of Norfolk is perhaps what helps it retain some of it character.
Too many motorways would soon see that disappear. Be careful what you wish for.
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