£350m Anglia Square Aviva deal 'groundbreaking'

A deal agreed with insurance company Aviva to fund the building of 1,100 homes in a city is "groundbreaking", a council leader said.

Labour-run Norwich City Council has formed a partnership with the firm to find investors for the £350m redevelopment of Anglia Square.

The opposition Green party said it had concerns about the project following the collapse of the council's housebuilding company Lion Homes.

But council leader Mike Stonard insisted the authority could be trusted and its investment plan was "a real gamechanger".

"I believe our partnership with Aviva, which has called Norwich home since 1792, will come to be seen as an historical partnership in one of England's most historic cities," he added.

The cost of buying and clearing the Anglia Square site has been covered by a £34m government grant and the new partnership has been set up to fund the next stages of development.

The council said that government money would be its contribution to the £350m pot, while Aviva said it would be putting money in as well - although the insurance firm declined to say how much.

Mark Bousfield, from Aviva Capital Partners, said it would be seeking housing associations and developers to invest in the project to construct homes which would be built "to the highest quality we can achieve".

"There's been uncertainty around Anglia Square for a long time. What we've tried to do is painstaking work with the city council, painstaking work with Homes England, painstaking work within our own team – to understand the best possible way forward for this project," he said.

Stonard said the council wanted at least half the homes to be "affordable", with 350 due to be built in the first two phases of construction.

He said at least 90 of those would be social housing, which would be filled from the local authorities waiting list, but the council was aiming for more.

"We will be pushing for the highest number we can get," he added.

Alex Catt, leader of the council's Green group, accused the Labour group of failing to provide enough details about its deal with Aviva.

He said there was a lack of oversight for Lion Homes – which was liquidated after recording losses of £5m – and he had "the same concerns around governance".

"If they can't learn from the mistakes around the problems they had with Lion Homes and the money they've lost there, it's going to be so hard to gain confidence in a scheme like this," said Catt.

However, Stonard insisted "there will be oversight".

"Those investors will do their due diligence, we'll do our due diligence - so we'll have a good prospect of ensuring those schemes can be viable and can continue," he said.

He added that demolition work on the site should be completed by the end of March 2026, with construction work due to begin soon after.

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