Final touches will be added to the redevelopment of Carrow Road and the adjacent Riverside Heights housing development over the course of the next two years.
A timetable for plans to spruce up the area with landscaping - part of the conditions from the expansion of the stadium more than a decade old - has finally been agreed by Norwich City Council's planning committee.
After some wrangling behind the scenes, the landscaping - to include granite aggregate paving around the South Stand and Geoffrey Watling Way - has been rubber stamped.
As the work will cause considerable disruption to accessing the stadium, work will be done outside of the English football season over the next two summers.
Tracy Armitage, planning officer, with Norwich City Council, told members: 'These two applications came to committee in 2014 with a recommendation to approve, but was delayed due to protracted discussions about engineering works. 'Those discussions have now been addressed and an agreement has been reached. This is a development which has already come forward in and around the football stadium and the major components have been completed, including the residential development and extension to the stadium itself.'
The redevelopment of the South Stand to 8,000 seats, and the associated 330 flats on Geoffrey Watling Way, dates back to 2002.
Failure to provide the landscaping to date has been 'relunctantly tolerated' according to the planning papers, as the housing development has taken precedent since 2008.
'This is the landscape around the stadium itself that remains outstanding on the northern side of Geoffrey Watling Way, and outside of the South Stand,' added Ms Armitage. 'Essentially it is a hard landscape approach. There is a need to keep the spaces free and open to allow for the movement of crowds and evacuation of the building. There is also an extensive CCTV network around the stadium and there is a requirement to keep that field of vision.
'The football club have indicated they would do the landscaping work over the next two close season periods. Because of the disruption that would occur around the stadium they wish to do the work out of season, and because of the scale of the works it would need to be done over two years.'
An agreement has not yet been reached about who will take responsibility for new moorings to be built on the banks of the Wensum, which will be agreed at a later date.
Keith Driver, for Lakenham ward, said it was a 'shame' there were no concrete proposals for the future of the moorings.
'That is the expensive side of the plan,' he said. 'If Norwich City do not take it on it might end up falling to the council. 'That said I think it is an excellent scheme. Ed Balls can dance all the way into the stadium with this.'
Members voted unanimously to support the scheme.
Missing link in Riverside Walk agreed
The 'missing link' in the Riverside Walk has been approved despite concerns over loss of hoary mullein - a significant plant under threat from development.
Plans to install a 3.5 metre wide cycle and footpath along a 130 metre length of river frontage adjacent to the Gothic works went before Norwich City Council's planning committee yesterday.
£260,000 was allocated to the scheme in 2013 when it was billed as a missing link in the riverside path, with hopes it would connect the city with Whitlingham Country Park.
Considering the future of the hoary mullein, the planning papers say 'This plant has significance in the Norwich area but is under pressure from continued development,'
They add: 'Reseeding should be sown from a local brownfield source.'
Tracy Armitage, planning officer with Norwich City Council, told members: 'The Riverside Walk is part of a long-term project for the city to create a continuous route along the river. 'The proposed section of the Riverside Walk would complete the section of the network between Carrow Bridge and Trowse Swing Bridge.'
A small building near the Trowse Swing Bridge, dating to the 1940s and thought to have been used as a World War Two barrage balloon site, will be demolished despite efforts to find a new use for it.
Work will be timed to coincide with a nearby Broadland Housing development.
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