Rename Anglia SquareRoy's Plaza
Norwich. It's time we had a serious conversation about Anglia Square.
They're redoing Anglia Square, and they've asked nobody what to call it. We have a once-in-a-generation chance to right a wrong in this city.
One simple request. Rename it Roy's Plaza. Back-to-back Roys all over Anglia Square, front and centre where it belongs.
If you're from Norfolk, this affects you.
—
people have signed
1,000 more to unlock: Anglia Square becomes Roy's Plaza
The case for Roy's Plaza
Roys isn't just a shop.Roys is Norfolk.
Every county has the handful of names that actually mean something. Ours are Colman's mustard. Jarrolds. Delia. Alan Partridge, whether we like it or not. And Roys.
Two brothers opened a general store in Coltishall in 1895. It moved to Wroxham and grew into the World's Largest Village Store, a title won in a competition and never given back. Generations of Norfolk people have been dragged round it on a wet Sunday. You know Roys. Your nan knows Roys.
This isn't a Norwich shop that Norfolk borrowed.
It's a Norfolk institution, out of Coltishall by way of Wroxham, that Norwich was lucky enough to get a piece of. Which brings us to the part that should make your blood boil.
Roys opened a store in Anglia Square in 1996. For five years the place actually made sense. Then in 2001 it closed. We had it. We lost it. Nobody has ever been held accountable.
Meanwhile, the square itself
Anglia Square opened in July 1970 and has been a stain on this city ever since. Fifty-five years of wet concrete, dead escalators and a car park you can see from space.
It shut for good in November 2025. The bulldozers went in the same month. Around 1,100 homes are going up in its place.
So the slate is genuinely blank. Every other city gets to name its own square. Nobody has asked us a single question about ours.
This is the most important petition Norwich has ever seen.
In short
A much-loved institution was thrown out of a building that everybody hated. The building is now rubble. The institution is still going. You do the maths.
What your signature unlocks
We are reasonable people.We start small.
Each milestone escalates the ask. Sign once and you are counted towards all three.
1,000
signatures
Stage 1. The renaming
Anglia Square becomes Roy's Plaza
Signs, maps, bus stops, the lot. The bare minimum this county is owed. Everything below is contingent on hitting this first.
5,000
signatures
Stage 2. The statue
A statue of a Roy goes up in the middle
Bronze. Life size at the absolute minimum. Positioned facing the Cathedral so the two great institutions of this city can look each other in the eye.
10,000
signatures
Stage 3. All of it
Every single shop in there becomes a Roys
Back-to-back Roys. A Roys next to a Roys next to a Roys. You walk out of one Roys and you are immediately in another Roys. Front and centre, where it belongs. See the site plan below.
Site plan below.
At 0 signatures
Norwich gets exactly the square it deserves.
Proposed revision
We've gone ahead andupdated the map.
No sense waiting around. Here is the site as it should look once all three stages land, with every unit allocated and the statue marked in the middle.
This page is a parody and is not a real petition. It has no affiliation with, endorsement from or connection to Roys, Norwich City Council, Aviva Capital Partners or the Anglia Square Investment Partnership. Nothing signed here is submitted to any authority, and no decision about the naming of the Anglia Square development rests with us in any way. The images are published development visuals and planning documents that we have drawn on top of for comedic effect, and are not real proposals. Your email is only used to email you if you tick the box asking us to. It is a joke, but the affection for Roys is genuine.