Councillors oppose £250m regeneration of estate

Plans for a 20-year redevelopment of a housing estate have been branded by a councillor as a "life sentence".

The £250m redevelopment of the 1,100-home Abbey Estate in Thetford, Norfolk, would include the demolition and rebuild of hundreds of houses and 500 new properties.

Flagship Housing Group submitted the planning application to the district's Breckland Council, and it will rule on whether the scheme goes ahead.

Members of Thetford Town Council, which include Terry Land, who voiced his concerns, have written a letter opposing the project. It urges the district council to refuse the application due to a strain on local services, displacement of a community, and loss of open space.

The letter stated: "The residents of the Abbey Estate, whose lives will be blighted by this proposed re-development for a generation, are almost universally opposed to it.

"Their health, wellbeing, happiness and peaceful enjoyment of their homes, should be of paramount importance to everyone concerned."

Mr Land, a member of both council's, was in support of the letter and said residents had been worried and anxious over an "uncertain future".

"For many, the two decades of proposed development amount to something like a life sentence. What is an 84-year-old going to do with below market value recompense for the house she's lived in and loved for over half a century?" he said.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the letter would be sent to officials at Breckland Council, where the application was waiting to be determined by the authority's planning committee.

The Abbey Estate was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s and falls within the top 10% of the most deprived neighbourhoods in England.

Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.