A farmer has blasted the county council as 'sneaky' after waiting years to be paid for land bought up for the building of the Northern Distributor Road (NDR).

Scores of landowners have been left waiting for council payouts following compulsory purchase orders for land bought up along the route of the £205m road.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the council in July last year revealed the council owed landowners £6.5m.

And Nicholas Waller-Barrett, who owns Glebe Farm, Horsford, hit out at Norfolk County Council over delays to his compensation.

Mr Waller-Barrett said he was frustrated the council had only paid him 50pc of the monies owed so far and said he should have had his final payment in March 2018.

READ MORE: Scores of landowners still waiting for NDR payments with £6.5m outstanding

He said: "The council are very far behind on the payments.

"We should have been paid in full by the time the road was open.

"The council have been very sneaky - [the land was] worth £12k, by the time they had finished [it was] worth £9k."

He added: "When are they ever going to pay it out? Surely they've got a duty to pay this money."

He also criticised the council's recent agreement to purchase Pump Farm to build the Western Link Road and said: "They're wasting tax-payers money and won't pay us. It's just ridiculous."

READ MORE: NDR compensation bill hits £23m with warning of more claims to come

He also criticised the council's recent agreement to purchase Pump Farm to build the Western Link Road and said: "They're wasting tax-payers money and won't pay us. It's just ridiculous."

Mr Waller-Barrett made his comments following a meeting of Broadland Council's planning committee, held on Wednesday, February 5, where his plans to diversify his remaining land into a storage facility was refused.

His son, Carl Waller-Barrett, told councillors: "The NDR has gone through our land. We're a concerned about our business."

But councillors unanimously voted against the scheme, after officers said the project risked posing a detriment to the area.

A county council spokesman said more than a third of the 100 separate land interests involved in the NDR, also known as the Broadland Northway, had been legally completed, with the council awaiting compensation claims or involved in ongoing negotiations in other cases.

He said: "In many cases, final figures have been agreed with just legal formalities to be concluded."

When asked for specific details as to how much was owed, he said: "It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases and on commercially sensitive information. While negotiations continue, we will not be issuing further comment over this case."

READ MORE: Scores of landowners still waiting for NDR payments with £6.5m outstanding