East Anglia Press Releases for the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads with Press Releases and Articles from the Broads Authority in East Anglia, and the East of England UK.

A four mile stretch of the River Chet, which runs from Loddon to the River Yare, is to be closed to navigation from Monday November 28th until December 23rd to allow Norfolk County Council to install a new footbridge at Hardley Flood.

Work on the £38,000 project has been delayed for a couple of months to minimise disruption to river traffic and the river will be reopened for the weekend of December 3rd and 4th to allow access to the boatyards in Loddon and Chedgrave.

The 12 m bridge, which will span one of Hardley Flood's fast flowing breaches, will open up a historic and much loved footpath from Chedgrave to the furthest end of Hardley Flood, an internationally important RAMSAR site for migrating birds, ready for the Christmas period. Walkers will be able to visit a new bird hide installed at Hardley Flood in May by Langley with Hardley Parish Council.

Once extensive flood defence works have been completed on the Hardley Marsh loop by 2007, the bridge will provide a vital link in the Wherryman's Way network from Norwich to Great Yarmouth.

In the meantime, to join the Wherryman's Way, walkers will have to follow the current diversion signs through Chedgrave Common to Hardley Dyke as there is no public access through Hardley Hall or beyond to Hardley Marsh loop.

A bonus of the flood defence work will be that BESL (Broadland Environmental Services Ltd) will improve the riverside footpaths and install an 800m easy access path from Chedgrave to Chedgrave Common.

Hardley Flood was formed when agricultural land was flooded in the 1940s and the ferocity of the tides which race into and out of the Flood eroded the banks recently around the old footbridge.

Reproduced by kind permission of Broads Authority.