Traffic counts in the west and north of Norwich have strengthened the case to complete the missing link of a major route.

Surveys were carried in out in May and June on a number of roads in the areas, shortly after the Broadland Northway, often known as the NDR, opened fully in April.

That road ends at the A1067, but there have been calls to link it to the A47 in the west of the city.

It came as part of Norfolk County Council's work to identify and tackle traffic problems to the west of the city.

The results showed that more than 21,000 vehicles a day are already using the Broadland Northway between the roundabout with Drayton Lane and the Cromer Road overbridge.

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And the council says the number of vehicles using Drayton High Road at Hellesdon has dropped, from 16,123 a day this year, compared to 19,028 in 2015.

But traffic using roads in villages to the west of Norwich is generally higher than was previously recorded in 2015, and higher than traffic modelling data had predicted.

Martin Wilby, chairman of the county concil's environment, development and transport committee, said: 'A lot of people have told me how Broadland Northway, or the NDR as many people still know it, has made a really positive difference to their lives, cutting their journeys to work by as much as 20 minutes each way and making their travel times so much more reliable as they're not stuck in queues.

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'But we've also been hearing for some time, before Broadland Northway opened, that traffic congestion on many roads and in several communities to the west of Norwich is getting worse, and this new data suggests there is a real problem. This isn't good for the people living there and their quality of life, nor is it good for those people who use these small, rural roads to get to work or to transport goods and who are getting held up.'

More extensive surveys are planned for September and October this year, with results likely to be published early in 2019.

The results from the survey supports those from a consultation in which the majority of the 1,700 respondents said roads in the area were not suitable for the level of traffic using them.