Norwich : Britain

Norwich : Britain
Norwich (pronounced variously “Norritch� or “Norridge�) is a city in East Anglia, in Eastern England, the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk.
In effect the City expands a long way beyond its actual borough boundary, with large suburban areas on most sides. The Parlimentary seats cross over into adjacent local government districts.
The University of East Anglia on the outskirts of Norwich was one of the redbrick universities founded in 1963. UEA adopted the city’s motto of independence Do different. The university campus houses the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. Norwich International Airport is a feeder to KLM’s Schipol hub. Apart from that smaller national airlines fly to UK destinations and there is a strong holiday charter flight business. The airport was originally the RAF airfield at Horsham St Faith. This was once the home of Air UK, which grew out of Air Anglia and was then absorbed by the Dutch airline KLM.
Satirical comedian Steve Coogan located his fictional, unbearably vain, cheesy broadcaster ‘Alan Partridge’ in Norfolk, specifically hosting the pre-breakfast show on the fictional independent station ‘Radio Norwich’. It exploited the county’s reputation as being somewhat detached from modern trends, past its prime, and rather peripheral to national life.
Other comic entertainers who have drawn comedy from that stereotype include Allan Smethurst ‘The Singing Postman’ and The Kipper Family lately represented by ‘son’ Sid Kipper, though these are associated with Norfolk in general and not just the City.
Each year the Norfolk and Norwich Festival celebrates the arts (chiefly music).
The city’s economy, orignally chiefly industrial, has changed throughout the eighties and nineties to a services based economy. Norwich Union, now Arriva, still dominates the services. Recent developments include the first of the controversial PFI hospitals, the new Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on the city’s periphery at Colney, the ‘Forum’ which replaced the old Central Library building which burned down in 1995, and is now the home of the Millennium Library and the regional BBC broadcasting office. New developments on the former Bolton and Paul site include the Riverside entertainment complex with nightclubs and other venues featuring the usual national leisure brands. Nearby the football stadium is being upgraded with more property development alongside the river Wensum. A shopping mall is being built on the Chapelfield site where the ‘Caleys’ (later Rowntree Mackintosh) chocolate factory stood.
Archant is a publishing group that has grown out of the city’s local newspaper the Norwich Evening News and the regional Eastern Daily Press (EDP). Independent radio stations are Broadland 102 and Classic Gold Amber. BBC Radio Norfolk and the University of East Anglia’s Livewire 1350 all broadcast to the city.
The city centre shopping has been highly rated in national surveys.
Norwich has long been associated with the manufacture of mustard. Colman’s was founded in 1814 and continues to operate from its factory at Carrow.
Norwich railway station
Norwich is occasionally portrayed by the media as a city out-of-step with national trends (see Alan Partridge); This is primarily due to its geographic isolation which has contributed greatly to its ‘unspoilt’ and insular character. There has always been a general tolerance of “incomers� by the ‘native’ population of Norwich and Norfolk, though becoming a “local� is still reckoned to take decades. There are good rail links from Norwich railway station to Peterborough and London, with Cambridge services added from 2004. It is considered to have a wealth of historical architecture.
Recent attempts to shed the backwater image of Norwich and market it as a popular tourist destination, as well as a centre for science, commerce, culture and the arts, have included the refurbishment of the Castle Museum and the opening of the magnificent ‘Forum’ which, apart from housing the Norwich and Norfolk Central Library, provides an new venue for exhibitions, concerts and events although the city still lacks a proper concert venue. The proposed new slogan for Norwich, England’s Other City, has been the subject of much discussion and controversy – and it remains to be seen whether it will be finally adopted.