Furious villagers have hit out over delays in repairing a small but crucial bridge which has left them cut off for the better part of a year.
Some people in East Ruston, near Stalham, have said they will have to fork out up to £1,000 more in petrol while the Honing New Bridge is closed because they have to take long detours to get anywhere.
Andrea Lyons, from East Ruston, said: “Everybody in the village is fed up with the detour.
“It’s a road everyone uses and they’re not addressing the urgency of this essential bridge being closed”.
Farmer Stephen Bracey said: “It’s a major headache for me as a farmer. I have to use the main roads and get all of the abuse for holding traffic up.
“If it had been in any town it would’ve been repaired in a fortnight.
“It’s unfair on the local community to put them through this for so long.”
The bridge connects East Ruston Road and School Road over the Hundred Stream, which forms the border between the parishes of East Ruston.
This and other waterways called Hundred Stream got their name because they separated areas that would be called on to provide 100 men to hold arms at the local lord's call.
A bridge engineer and a representative from Norfolk County Council's highways department said a crack was found in March during a regular inspection, which led to its closure in June.
They told a group of about 30 people at a public meeting about the closure on Monday (November 13) that repair work would not start until February next year.
Mrs Lyons said, for East Runton people, the closure added up to 10 miles onto journeys to North Walsham and Norwich, but the effects of the closure were more widespread.
She said: "Anyone who wants to go to North Walsham, Dilham, Smallburgh, and who wants to come to the village or pass through to get to Stalham - which is what most people would do - are being affected.
"Over a third of families with children at the local school and half their teaching staff are affected by it.
"They said a repair like this would normally take two years, and that we're lucky they're going to do it much quicker for us, but it doesn't seem like that from where we're sitting."
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Mrs Lyons said there was still pedestrian and cycle access over the bridge - and some East Ruston people had taken up cycling to North Walsham - but this would also stop once the repairs began.
A spokesperson for Norfolk County Council said: “Following a recent inspection of the bridge we became aware of a significant structural defect, potentially caused by poor ground conditions beneath the original structure.
“Work has been commissioned to design a replacement bridge that will remain safe in this location, which will be built as soon as possible.
“We are taking steps to have a new bridge constructed as swiftly as possible while guaranteeing the safety of road users for years to come.”
Mrs Lyons said that at the meeting, the question of whether compensation would be offered for locals was raised. She said: "They pretty much blanked it. They're not going to go down that road at all."
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