The role played by Norfolk County Council's leader to end a controversial traffic ban on a major road has been revealed, including how she said it would be a "waste of time" for officials to try to convince councillors not to re-open the route.
Emails of conversations between Kay Mason Billig, leader of the Conservative-controlled council, and Graham Plant, cabinet member for highways, show her frustration after County Hall officers warned there would be "ramifications" of reopening Exchange Street in Norwich.
The street, near Jarrolds, was originally closed to the majority of traffic in July 2020, as the city centre reopened after Covid pandemic lockdowns.
But Mr Plant took the contentious decision last month to reopen it, saying problems with enforcing the closure and "safety issues" from drivers having to reverse once they had wrongly gone down Gaol Hill, meant the experimental closure should not be made permanent.
Emails obtained by charity Living Streets Norwich, using the Freedom of Information Act, have revealed how, at the end of July, after reading a story in the EDP about businesses unhappy at the street's closure, she asked Mr Plant to get the road reopened.
Mr Plant told her that officers were drawing up a report into the issue, with the experimental order which had banned traffic from the street since 2020 due to expire.
But Mrs Mason Billig replied: "It is a waste of time for officers to write a report, trying to convince us not to do this.
"I think we need to remind them who runs this council and tell them to get on with it!"
Lucy Hall, from Living Streets - which campaigned to keep the street shut to traffic - said: "It’s very worrying that the leader of Norfolk County Council seems not to have been aware - or not to have cared - about the effects of a major decision to undo the pedestrianisation of Exchange Street.
“To keep Norwich’s streets thriving we need consistent and clearly thought through plans to improve the city for pedestrians, wheelchair and mobility scooter users, not last-minute decisions based on a whim, seemingly aimed at getting ‘likes’ on social media."
Mr Plant recently scrapped a committee which discussed major Norwich transport schemes in public, replacing it with a behind-closed-doors steering group.
Green Party county councillor Paul Neale said: “The idea that serious choices are being made on the basis of what leaders read in the papers that morning is frankly absurd.
"It really does just confirm our worst suspicions about knee-jerk decision-making at the top of the County Council.
“This is why we need the decision-making process to be conducted in the open where politicians can be held to account by the people affected by their decisions.
"Telling officers that their expertise is a waste of time is no way to run a council.
“Furthermore, Mrs Mason Billig’s tone seems highly disrespectful to council officers who are just doing their job in trying to present evidence to decision-makers, and could spark formal complaints of improper conduct."
When the Transport for Norwich joint committee - made up of Norfolk, Norwich, South Norfolk and Broadland councillors - agreed last year to keep Exchange Street shut as part of a wider Connecting The Lanes project, Mrs Mason Billig voted against it.
At that point she was not leader of Norfolk County Council and was on the committee, which did vote for the closure, as a South Norfolk councillor.
She had said: "Norwich is not a city for the people who live in Norwich. It's a city for everyone who lives in Norfolk.
"The more we squeeze people the less likely they are to want to shop here. They will go out of town or carry on online.
"We need to look at all sorts of transport, not just cyclists, pedestrians and disabled people, but ordinary people who want to shop and visit our city.
"My husband is Norwich born and bred and says he doesn't know which way to go around his city anymore, because of all the restrictions we are putting in place.
"We don't have to pedestrianise the whole thing and squeeze people out and that seems to be the way we are heading."
Exchange Street is due to reopen on Saturday (November 18).
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