The visitor centre and cafe near Horsford was due to finish on 30 September. Delayed timber shingles pushed it to late October, and the budget is up £200,000.

The new visitor centre and cafe at Broadland Country Park will not be finished this month. Completion is now forecast for late October 2026, against a council target of 30 September.

The delay is blamed on one material. Specialist timber shingles for the outside of the building were slow to manufacture and arrived in stages, and that pushed back everything that had to follow.

The figures are in a project update going to Broadland District Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee at 6.30pm today, Tuesday 22 September. Councillors asked for it after questioning progress on the scheme.

What is late, and why

The council says the building is structurally up and work has moved to external works, internal fit out, testing, commissioning and handover, along with the parking and access improvements. Nothing has been cut from the approved scheme.

Alongside the shingles, the report lists four other things that slowed the job:

  • a redesign of the Section 278 highway works
  • statutory utility and service requirements
  • drainage and infrastructure work
  • the time needed for testing, commissioning, certification and handover

The report does not give an opening date for the cafe, only a completion and handover forecast. Operational handover and opening come after that.

The budget is £200,000 higher

The project has gone £200,000 over its original allocation. The council attributes the increase to the cumulative effect of five things: the extra Section 278 works, off-site statutory utility works, changes made to protect the scheme’s key deliverables, mitigation of parish council objections, and extensions to professional services contracts caused by the delays.

Most of that is covered, but not all of it.

Bar chart: of the extra £200,000, £130,000 comes from Section 106 developer money and £50,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, both allocated, while £20,000 from the Environmental Reserve is still under discussion

£130,000 of Section 106 developer money and £50,000 of Shared Prosperity Fund money have been allocated. Discussions about the remaining £20,000, from the council’s Environmental Reserve, are still going on with the portfolio holder for Environmental Excellence.

This is a different number from the one in the finance report

Two figures are now in circulation and they are not the same thing.

  • £207,000 is the in-year variance we reported on 11 September: the council’s Quarter 1 finance report forecast £1.386m of capital spending on the scheme in 2026/27 against a £1.179m budget for the year.
  • £200,000 is what today’s report calls an increase in the overall project budget against its original allocation, across the whole scheme rather than one financial year.

They measure different things and should not be added together. The final cost is still not settled: the report says it remains subject to completion of the works, commissioning and agreement of the final account.

What it means for you

If you were planning an autumn walk with a coffee at the end of it, wait. The park itself is open and free, but the cafe and the new facilities will not be handed over until late October at the earliest, and opening follows handover.

For council taxpayers the money is capital spending, not a charge on visitors. The part worth watching is the £20,000 that has not yet been found, and whether the late October date holds. The report itself lists further delay as the first of its three main risks.

Broadland Country Park sits between Horsford and Felthorpe, and doubles as a Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace, the green space developers pay towards so that new housing does not add pressure to protected wildlife sites. Cabinet approved the design work in November 2023 and the procurement and delivery arrangements in March 2025.

The committee is asked only to note the report and the revised completion date. Papers are on the council’s meeting page.

Sources