Council spends £30k removing ‘noisy' speed bump amid £45m deficit
Norfolk County Council built the speed bump and a zebra crossing in the town of Dereham to make the area safer for pedestrians, including pupils at nearby Northgate High School.
But residents complained that heavy lorries would make a loud rattling noise when they drove over the raised portion of road, prompting the council to remove it less than a year later.
The Tory-controlled town hall was forced to make sweeping cuts and tax rises to plug a £44.7m budget shortfall for the 2025-26 financial year.
Kay Mason Billig, leader of Norfolk County Council, has previously warned that the authority could go bust unless the Government helps with its growing financial pressures.
She said the authority was experiencing 'the toughest financial challenges the council has ever faced'.
The council has confirmed council tax will rise by 4.99pc in the April 2025-26 tax year – the maximum amount local authorities can raise the levy without a referendum.
The project to install the speed bump and zebra crossing on Quebec Road in Dereham cost the authority £216,343, with the speed bump itself costing £4,400 to build. The council has not removed the zebra crossing.
Harry Clarke, a Dereham town councillor, said the project had been a 'farce', and pointed out that £30,000 is the same amount the local council is considering taking away from Dereham Meeting Point, a charity that offers day-care for disabled people and over-55s.
He added: 'It's a mixture of waste and incompetence and lack of communication. It's not rocket science to install a speed bump.
'There's an unfortunate parallel with the charity which is under threat from having £30,000 withdrawn. Residents will draw their own conclusions.'
Norfolk County Council is struggling to balance the books due to rising demand for adult social care and children's services.
In December, the local authority said it would switch off 1,000 street lights in a bid to save cash. Powering street lights costs the council around £4m per year, and the proposal would save an estimated £200,000 per year.
In February, the Government agreed to provide Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) to 30 councils in England for the 2025-26 financial year. Norfolk County Council was not among them.
A spokesman for Norfolk County Council said: 'The new zebra crossing and wider improvements carried out as part of this project have improved road safety in the area and we will continue to monitor the performance of the new crossing facility and traffic speeds at this location.
'It was necessary to remove the raised element of the zebra crossing due to the increased noise disturbance caused to neighbouring properties.
'We fully understand local feelings on wider council decisions but must stress that government funding for highway improvements cannot be used to support other frontline services.'
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
35 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Transgender runner Evie Parts sues NCAA and Swarthmore College for removal from track team
Swarthmore men's and women's track coach Peter Carroll, athletic director Brad Koch and athletics officials Christina Epps-Chiazor and Valerie Gomez also were named in the lawsuit. According to the complaint, they sent Parts into 'such a depressive state that she engaged in self-harm and in one moment told a friend that she wanted to kill herself.' Advertisement 'We stand by the allegations in the complaint,' said Susie Cirilli, an attorney who along with co-counsel Spector, Gadon, Rosen and Vinci, represents Parts. 'As stated in the complaint, the NCAA is a private organization that issued a bigoted policy. Swarthmore College chose to follow that policy and disregard federal and state law.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Swarthmore issued a statement that it 'deeply values our transgender community members.' 'We recognize that this is an especially difficult and painful time for members of the transgender community, including student-athletes,' the school said. 'We worked to support Evie Parts in a time of rapidly evolving guidance, while balancing the ability for other members of the women's track team to compete in NCAA events. Given the pending litigation, we will not comment any further.' Advertisement The NCAA chose not to comment. The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women's sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports. Pennsylvania's state Senate approved a bill by a 32-18 margin on May 6 to ban transgender athletes from competing in women's and girls' sports at the collegiate and K-12 levels. The state's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives isn't expected to vote on the bill. Parts joined the Swarthmore track team in fall 2020 before then taking off the following four winter and spring seasons. She went back to the Division III team in 2023 to compete in the indoor and outdoor track seasons and in cross country. When the NCAA issued its ban, the lawsuit states, Parts was told by Epps-Chiazor and Gomez that she could compete with the men's team or as an unattached athlete. She would only receive medical treatment, the complaint says, if she competed on the men's team. According to the lawsuit, Carroll and his staff were not allowed to coach Parts, she could not travel with the team, was not allowed to receive per diem or food and had to pay her way into meets. Parts also couldn't wear a Swarthmore uniform. Swarthmore 'fully reinstated' Parts on April 11, the lawsuit says, and she competed on the women's team until graduating in May. In July, a transgender woman sued Princeton University claiming she was illegally removed shortly before her race in a school-hosted track meet in May due to her gender identity. Sadie Schreiner, who had transitioned during high school, had previously run for Division III Rochester Institute of Technology but was set to compete as an athlete unattached to any school or club in the Larry Ellis Invitational. That complaint seeks unspecified damages for a 'humiliating, dehumanizing and dignity-stripping ordeal' in front of family and friends. Advertisement
Washington Post
36 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Bolivia heads to the polls as its right-wing opposition eyes first victory in decades
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivians headed to the polls on Sunday to vote in presidential and congressional elections that could spell the end of the Andean nation's long-dominant leftist party and see a right-wing government elected for the first time in over two decades. The election on Sunday is one of the most consequential for Bolivia in recent times — and one of the most unpredictable.
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Three Republican-led states to deploy National Guard troops to U.S. capital
The Republican governors of three states are deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., at the request of the administration of President Donald Trump, who has portrayed the city as awash in crime. The announcements on Saturday of troops from hundreds of miles away in West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio came a day after D.C. officials and the Trump administration negotiated a deal to keep Mayor Muriel Bowser's appointed police chief, Pamela Smith, in charge of the police department after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit to block the federal takeover of the department. Trump, a Republican, said this week he was deploying hundreds of D.C. National Guard troops to Washington and temporarily taking over the Democratic-led city's police department to curb what he depicted as a crime and homelessness emergency. Justice Department data, however, showed violent crime in 2024 hit a 30-year low in Washington, a self-governing federal district under the jurisdiction of Congress. West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey's office said in a statement he was deploying 300 to 400 National Guard troops to D.C. in "a show of commitment to public safety and regional cooperation." The statement said he also was providing equipment and specialized training. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster responded to a Pentagon request by announcing that 200 of his state's National Guard troops would be sent. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said he would send 150 military police members in the coming days, adding none of them were "currently serving as law enforcement officers in the state." After the announcements, Mayor Bowser posted on X: "American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil is #UnAmerican." The National Guard serves as a militia that answers to the governors of the 50 states except when called into federal service. The D.C. National Guard reports directly to the president. Trump, who has suggested he could take similar actions in other Democratic-controlled cities, has sought to expand the powers of the presidency in his second term, inserting himself into the affairs of major banks, law firms and elite universities. In June, Trump ordered 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, against the wishes of California's Democratic governor, during protests over mass immigration raids by federal officials. South Carolina's McMaster said his troops would immediately return to South Carolina if needed to respond to a possible hurricane or other natural disaster. Hurricane Erin, now northeast of Puerto Rico, has become a catastrophic Category 5 storm that could bring ocean swells to the U.S. East Coast early next week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Saturday. National Guard troops often respond to natural disasters and rarely police U.S. civilians. Drew Galang, a spokesperson for West Virginia's Morrisey, said the state's National Guard received the order to send equipment and personnel to D.C. late on Friday and was working to organize the deployment. A White House official said on Saturday that more National Guard troops would be called in to Washington to "protect federal assets, create a safe environment for law enforcement officials to carry out their duties when required, and provide a visible presence to deter crime." A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a formal order was expected to go out that would authorize National Guard troops in D.C. to carry firearms. The official said this order would affect mostly military police officers with sidearms. Reuters has reported that the National Guard troops would have weapons nearby, such as in their vehicles. The White House said on Saturday that D.C. National Guard members have conducted patrols on foot and in vehicles around the National Mall and Union Station. The White House said the National Guard troops are not making arrests now and that they may be armed. It is not clear how the administration could deploy National Guard troops elsewhere. A federal judge in San Francisco is expected in the coming weeks to issue a ruling on whether Trump violated the law with the Los Angeles deployments.
