The spatial response

Greater Norwich sub-region

A science city and regional finance centre

368,000 people live in Greater Norwich and the Norwich policy area has a population of 230,000, which is predicted to grow to 280,000 by 2025 comparable to the present size of Nottingham. About 123,000 people work in the Norwich area, which makes it the largest labour market in the East of England and it is the fifth most popular retail centre in England. Greater Norwich has a challenging growth agenda; the regional spatial strategy proposes growth of 33,000 dwellings and 35,000 additional jobs by 2021.

Assets and opportunities
  • Norwich Research Park (NRP), one of Europe's largest sites of biotechnology research, already generates a number of high-value spin-out companies (eg in drug development, DNA profiling, genomics and software development). NRP supports 6,500 jobs and 900 postgraduate research sciences students and includes the John Innes Centre, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Trust
  • the University of East Anglia is an international leader in areas such as climate change, health and life sciences
  • highest graduate retention rates in the East of England
  • an advanced automotive engineering cluster and enterprise hub based at Hethel, with Lotus as an internationally renowned innovative company as its anchor
  • existing and emerging sectoral strengths in finance and business services, biggest cluster of creative industries in the region, food processing, environment and bioscience and automotive engineering. Norwich supports more than 50 regional or national headquarters, with companies including Norwich Union, Marsh, Virgin, Bayer Crop Science, Colmans, and Adobe Systems
  • Norwich City has the highest job density of any local authority area in the UK outside London
  • a vibrant city centre with extensive cultural, leisure, sports and heritage offer, with the largest collection of heritage assets in any UK provincial city and access to the Broads and the Norfolk coast
  • a strong quality of life with attractive urban and rural living environments
  • one of the UK's largest open access free wireless broadband networks
  • Norwich city centre is by far the highest-ranking retail centre in the region and fifth in the UK
  • Norwich International Airport as a direct economic driver and connecting the sub-region to international markets and Amsterdam Schipol as an international hub.
Constraints
  • a perceived lack of a clear and positive external identity is impeding the sub-region to capture its full share of inward investment as evidenced by the low numbers of enquiries
  • the city has high levels of multiple deprivation concentrated at ward level. Over 30 per cent of Norwich children are affected by income deprivation
  • the structure of the labour market is out of balance with a lack of intermediate-level jobs
  • there is inadequate or constrained employment land availability, particularly in the quality of office accommodation within the city centre
  • dwellings targets for Greater Norwich sub-region represent a 30 per cent increase in the required rate of delivery and are largely dependent on a number of major sites that will require intervention and infrastructure to bring them forward
  • the current rate of affordable housing delivery is currently 20 per cent, falling short of the government’s target of 35 per cent of all new housing development stock
  • national and regional connectivity is poor.
Strategic ambitions
  • strengthen Norwich as a leading medium-sized science city in the UK
  • further transition to a knowledge-based economy through major improvements to the skills and employment base
  • improve the position of University of East Anglia in global university rankings and significantly increase spin-out technology transfer and R&D collaboration, with close ties to the local economy
  • enable the development of clusters at Norwich Research Park and Hethel around globally renowned anchor companies and research institutes in areas of automotive engineering, environment and life sciences
  • develop Norwich as a nationally important centre in financial and business services and creative industries, and maintain Norwich as a top ten retail centre with matching city centre office accommodation
  • develop Norwich as an international exemplar of a low-carbon city, with the promotion of renewable energy, combined heat and power, wind, solar and biomass
  • improve the connectivity of Norwich to key national, regional and local markets through infrastructure improvements to key roads and enhanced rail services to London and other regional cities
  • greater coordination and intervention to bring forward large brownfield sites for redevelopment
  • increase linkages between Norwich International Airport, Amsterdam Schipol as a European hub and other key international markets
  • diversify and strengthen the economy of market towns within the sub-region
  • a nationally recognised heritage and arts offer and regionally important retail and leisure functions as part of a stronger inward investment strategy that demonstrates the distinctiveness of the sub-region.

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