It has happened largely out of sight and out of the headlines, but few Norfolk communities have been transformed as much as Rackheath, as new housing has seen it sprawl far beyond its origin confines. As other villages face similar expansions, NOAH VICKERS went to find out what they can expect
Walk along the main road through the heart of Rackheath and it might seem like little has changed here for decades.
Past the pleasing 1930s Art Deco pub runs a strip of postwar bungalows, interspersed with larger homes in a mix of styles.
But turn off the Salhouse Road, onto Eva Road, for instance, and things quickly change.
For this is not a short, countryside cul de sac, but the entry into a warren of streets and a sprawling modern housing estate – hidden from the main road, but stretching almost the length of the village.
Further along the Salhouse Road is Sam Smith Way leading to another modern estate, Wendover Park, again largely concealed from the rest of Rackheath.
At the other end of the village, near the pub, yet another enormous estate is taking shape. This one, at least, will be unmissable from the main drag. And others are in the pipeline. There are currently almost 1,000 homes in the village and that number could still rise six fold.
Here, then, is a community like many others in Norfolk which is growing: building new homes, welcoming new families and taking over more land.
But it also a community which has already grown. The expansion underway in other villages has been happening here for longer. The housing off Eva Road, for instance, has stood there for many years already, with many properties on their second, third or fourth owners by now.
So what can other communities learn from Rackheath’s experience?
What is life like in a village which – out of sight from most – has already been so utterly transformed?
Well, for a start it’s still pretty quiet. Despite the sounds of construction from the surrounding building sites and the hum of the nearby Northern Distributor Road (NDR), the place was almost deserted on Wednesday afternoon, with few people out and about.
Fiona Duffell, a 60-year-old retiree was one of the few exceptions, walking her dogs up to the woodland on the village edge.
“It is a good place to live, it’s just [that] it’s changed a lot, and it’s still changing,” she said.
“For me personally, I find it slightly noisier than it used to be, but that’s just my thing, and it hasn’t changed the feel [of the village] too much.”
Ms Duffell has seen Rackheath go from a small rural community, to a dormitory village, and accepts that the transformation is not yet complete.
Most of the new housing is on the north side of the Salhouse Road, but there are previous developments on the south side which run right up to the Norwich to Cromer railway line.
The railway forms a natural border to the east of the village and the NDR now does the same to the west – but even beyond the dual carriageway, permission has been granted for hundreds of new homes.
And as Norwich spreads imperceptibly outwards towards the NDR, there is every prospect of Rackheath ultimately becoming absorbed into the urban sprawl.
“You can’t stop progress, can you? And homes are needed,” said Ms Duffell, as she looked down the road at the construction sites.
“We’re almost at the point of merging with Salhouse and Sprowston, you could argue we’re becoming one massive suburb, but I think we’re quite lucky here, because we’re still surrounded by fields.
“You can still walk to your house and get to a field quite quickly, which is nice.”
At Rackheath Stores, shop assistant Ganesh Nava, 58, said he loved the village but that he could see it soon becoming effectively part of Norwich.
“We need the houses, that’s true, but at the same time, we need a quiet village, especially for the elderly people,” he said.
And behind the till at the local post office, Catherine Bird, 52, said: “You don’t mind one development, but all the way down Salhouse Road, there’s four or five developments, and then there’s going to be another one behind the industrial estate – and you kind of worry for the village, it’s not going to have a village feel any more.”
She added that she was worried about homes going up without adequate supporting infrastructure, like schools, arriving at the same time.
Local parish, district and county councillor Fran Whymark moved to Rackheath in 2000, and said it was the nicest place he had ever lived.
“It’s a really friendly place, and during Covid it really pulled together,” he said.
For Mr Whymark, the knowledge of profound changes coming to Rackheath, when plans were lodged in the late noughties, were enough to convince him to run for elected office.
“Realistically, that’s the reason I got involved in politics, because I knew we were getting big changes in my community and local area, and I thought the only way I can do something to shape that, really, is to get involved,” he said.
“At the moment we’ve got about 900 houses in the village, and when the developments are finished we’ll have something like 5,000 or 6,000.”
During Gordon Brown’s premiership, Rackheath was shortlisted to be the location of a new so-called “eco town”.
Unveiled in 2007, the plan would have seen 10 carbon-neutral communities delivering up to 200,000 new homes on cheap government-owned greenbelt land by 2020 - but the impending financial crash quickly saw the plans scaled back, and then quietly shelved.
Mr Whymark, a Conservative, said the concept as originally envisioned was now firmly “dead and buried” in Rackheath, but that the idea was nonetheless “ahead of its time” in its focus on encouraging active travel and developing more environmentally-friendly building methods.
Asked whether Rackheath would now become more of a satellite of Norwich, or a centre in its own right, Mr Whymark said both were likely to happen.
A masterplan for development across Greater Norwich, published in 2011 and amended in 2014, places an emphasis on an expanded employment area in Rackheath to ensure people can work locally, and on ensuring that green open spaces can continue to be accessed easily.
During the Second World War, the village hosted the US Army Air Force, and served as the most easterly and therefore the nearest to Germany of all British wartime airfields.
Development planned around the base’s former runways will seek to incorporate the original layout where possible, Mr Whymark said, and he added this would help to preserve an important part of Rackheath’s heritage.
Reflecting on the village being relatively little-known despite its growing size, the councillor said: “It is tucked away… We’re not a place that people know of.
“If I talk to somebody about where I live, I’ll often say ‘I’m about five miles from Norwich’ or I’m close to Wroxham’, because they don’t know where we are.
“Rackheath is a place that’s not really recognised in its own right, and in the long term, hopefully, it will be.”
A SHIFTING VILLAGE
Rackheath’s modern transformation is simply the latest chapter in a long history of change.
The village was once centred further to the north, nearer to the Wroxham Road.
This area was originally known as Great Rackheath or Rackheath Magna but has since dwindled and is now dwarfed by the settlement along the Salhouse Road, once known as Little Rackheath, or Rackheath Parva and later New Rackheath and now, simply Rackheath.
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