Revealed: A47 Acle Straight set for new speed limit and enforcement cameras

Highways bosses want to reduce the speed limit on the A47 between Great Yarmouth and Acle from 60mph to 50mph, saying it is needed to prevent crashes and deaths.

The Acle Straight (Image: Sonya Duncan) But critics, while accepting the need to make the 6.8-mile road safer, say the ultimate solution is to dual the Straight.

The reduced speed limit will add just under a minute and a half to journeys along the road.The Acle Straight (Image: Mike Page)

National Highways, the government company responsible for the road, has sent letters inviting organisations, businesses or individuals to have their say on the proposals.

The company said that between 2017 and 2021 there were 54 crashes on the road, with 138 people hurt.

It said cutting the speed limit, enforced by average speed cameras – which use automatic number plate reading to record speed between two points – would improve safety for all road users.

Speed cameras would be installed on the road (Image: Newsquest)

National Highways said 50mph would be a safer speed, which would “reduce the frequency and severity of collisions”.

Police attend a fatal crash on the Acle Straight (Image: Mike Page)

A National Highways spokesman said: “Safety is our number one priority, and we are currently consulting with local residents on a potential speed limit reduction between Acle and Great Yarmouth.

“We are asking for people in the area to engage with us to discuss lowering the speed limit to reduce the number of collisions on the A47.”

Graham Plant, Norfolk County Council cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure (Image: Norfolk County Council)

But Graham Plant, Norfolk County Council’s cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure, said the proposals were likely to be “unpopular”.

Mr Plant, who is also chairman of the A47 Alliance, a group of councils and businesses which pushes for improvements to the road, said: “Because this is about putting in safety measures, I have to go along with it.

“But I am not happy about it, because the answer to the problems with the Acle Straight is to make it a dual carriageway, rather than reducing the speed.

“I think is going to be unpopular. Businesses will be affected, as will people trying to get to work.

“We have had a summer of some serious accidents on the road^[1], so I understand why this needs to happen.

“But the overall answer is the dualling we have been pushing for, for years and which we will keep banging the drum for.

“We’ve got two ports – at Yarmouth and Lowestoft, ready to take food to the Midlands, and we haven’t got a dualled road to be able to do it.”

READ MORE: Anger as A47 Acle Straight dualling ruled out for at least a decade^[2]

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National Highways will consider the feedback it has had to the Acle Straight proposals and will now finalise its design plans.

The company will then lodge an application for a traffic regulation order to cut the limit.

That application is likely to happen later this autumn, when people will get another chance to express their views.

The Acle Straight (Image: Denise Bradley)

The proposal comes at a time when Highways England is also proposing a speed limit reduction on another single carriageway part of the A47.

National Highways wants to lower the speed limit across a section between Little Fransham and the Dereham bypass – a five-mile stretch of road^[3].

The reduction aims to take the current speed limit of 60mph down to 50mph and the road safety proposal will also include speed camera enforcement measures.

National Highways said the area has seen 27 crashes in which 41 people were injured over a five-year period.

Long-awaited work to dual two single carriageway sections of the A47, between Blofield and North Burlingham and from Easton to North Tuddenham, began this summer.

Originally announced in 2014, Mr Plant previously criticised National Highways for the slow pace of progress^[4] on getting those schemes in place.

Dr Andrew Boswell challenged the A47 schemes in the High Court (Image: Dan Grimmer)

The projects were further held up by a legal challenge by environmental campaigner Dr Andrew Boswell^[5], who took the matter to the High Court.

Thickthorn junction, on the edge of Norwich (Image: Mike Page)

Question marks hang over two other A47 projects – revamps of the Thickthorn junction on the edge of Norwich and Vauxhall roundabout in Great Yarmouth^[6] – because of a government review of transport schemes.