On Monday February 26th 7 members of Subterranea Britannica visited the Broadland District Council Emergency centre located behind the council offices in Yarmouth Road, Norwich. This is a very late purpose built two storey bunker with the upper floor semi-sunken and the lower floor underground. Construction was only completed in 1990 and the centre is still used by the District Council.
Access is through a heavy blast door in the South face of the building from which five steps lead down into a short corridor. On the right is another blast door giving access to the standby generator and fuel tank. The generator looks old and must have been second hand when fitted. Straight ahead a third substantial blast door leads into the bunker proper. To the left is the control room, straight ahead are the stairs down to the lower level and on the right a short corridor. This corridor leads to gents flushing toilets (left), ladies (straight ahead) and on the right a very narrow ventilation plant room.
The control room is the largest room in the bunker and is furnished with tables and chairs around the centre and various local maps around two walls. Three rooms are accessed along one side. First is the communications room which is itself divided into two rooms. The first has four acoustic booths with three telephones and a fax machine and the second room which is smaller has three acoustic booths with radio equipment owned and,operated by RAYNET. The middle room leading out of the control room houses only a table and an aging computer terminal and the far room only contains an SX50 ECN unit.
The stairs down to the second floor gives access to an east - west spine corridor with a dormitory at each end. There are no beds and it’s unclear if they were ever installed. In the eastern dormitory there is a small blast door in one wall which leads into the filter room, immediately below the ventilation plant room. There is a larger blast door in the other dormitory leading to the emergency escape shaft which consists of a ladder up to an entrance in the western end of the surface blockhouse. There are four rooms on the north side of the spine corridor, two small store rooms and two L shaped toilets each containing two cubicles with chemical toilets installed. On the other side of the corridor the first room opposite the stairs was the controllers room, now empty. Next to it is the canteen and within it the kitchen containing the usual domestic appliances.
