The statement made by Graham Plant, the Norfolk County Council portfolio holder on Transport, at County Hall in Norwich on 8 December 2025.
I’m glad you brought this up, because it’s been a it’s been on my desk for a little while now.
We’ve been through a proper process to get to where we are with the Sheringham bus stop.
We’ve worked hard with Sheringham community, including local schools, the town council, bus operators, the North Norfolk railway, the local museum and Sheringham in Bloom, to shape the travel hub.
We carried out a full public consultation in May 2025 with two Open Day events. And I’ve got to tell you that this started in 2022 so it’s not something that’s just suddenly dropped on the doorstep.
More than 500 people engaged with this, and our plans were revised following the helpful feedback received from a number of people, notably, a new look bespoke glass and steel bus shelter with additional green spaces and more seating.
We have had many positive comments about the new travel hub proposals from residents and other key stakeholders, and people in the area are pleased with a significant financial investment in Sheringham and in ensuring the area is made safe and fit for the future, especially given that we have managed to up the national trend in terms of bus usage in Norfolk, and we’ve seen a 26% increase in bus passengers numbers over the past two years, which is phenomenal. Last Friday, Government announced even more money for Norfolk to encourage even greater use of busses. So schemes such as this to cope with both current and future demand are essential.
The consultation ran from the second of May to the 26th of May. It was promoted and well received.
Only 19% of respondents to the online consultation said they wanted the old shelter to stay.
All statutory consultees were contacted directly about the consultation and about it being a heavy handed reproach approach and legality. Last week’s protesters forced their way onto a live construction site. This has saved the implications of both our workforce, the protesters and the general public and the immediate area. Therefore, we are quite within our rights to attempt to remove those who should not be on the construction site. We have followed all necessary legal advice and processes and have acted appropriately and proportionally. We have not physically attacked anybody or physically touched anybody in this process, but ultimately, the protesters have not listened to any requests for them to leave the site. We’re doing the work over winter so that it doesn’t affect the summer trade and a question about, why are we not protecting this shelter? It did go to Historic England and were asked to consider the listing of the bus shelter. In their response, where they declined to list the structure, they said that, given its late date, it does not exhibit the architectural interest and technical innovation seen in the most significant examples of the building time, and they give three other bullet points as well as to why it’s not been listed.
We did decline TV interviews last week because I didn’t see any benefit to it, particularly given that the local MP, who’s also been involved very late in the process, very late in the process, I said it started in 2022 it’s been through several processes and the sharing of town council on many occasions. Not a word, nothing. But he did manage to come in at the very last minute and help these supporters of it.
He also tried to do it on social media. I don’t do my politics on social media. He can write to me and I respond. That’s what I do with most people. They write to me and I respond.
I’m sure they understand the benefits of the project. Now he’s carried out his own study of the plans, and he spoke to me as he spoke to the leader. We had a meeting last Wednesday morning, at 08:30 in the morning. And he even said in that meeting, delay it for five to ten days, and we’ll probably carry on with the project. But he wanted to give the people who were protesting enough time to protest and then let them go.
This money has to be spent by March 26 it has to be in place if we don’t spend the money by March 26 then we lose the money. I’m not intending to lose that money. If I don’t spend it in Sheringham, I’ll spend it somewhere else. I will not lose the money. So from that point of view, I have several schemes across Norfolk that I can spend this money on the stop itself.
It’s important to some people, not everybody, but it’s been through a proper process to find out how we are where we are. Unfortunately, if it continues, and I’m not going to strong arm people out of there, I will not do that, but I will spend the money elsewhere. Unfortunately, that also means that, because the bus companies have said it’s a dangerous stop in its current form, then they won’t be able to use that bus stop either. So we’ll have to find a different stop to use as well, which is unfortunate because it’s really quite close to the bus the railway station.