Snippets (2)

Our plaques advertised worldwide

The Society's Blue Plaques scheme is featured by Michael Anderton on the internet. He's made a good job of it, except that there is a plaque about John Glyde on No 9 Eagle Street despite his "plaque not yet erected". If you haven't got a copy of our leaflet about the people commemorated it is available from the Tourist Information Centre. If you'd like to follow Mr Anderton's Trail (he's long speciallsed in pointing out good walks) information is on http- // www.anderton.btintemet.co.uk/townwalk/ipswbpt.htm [Our scheme will be added to.]

Norwich top!

Norwich now has more Park & Ride facilities than any other city in the UK. The f 1.6m Harford scheme (two miles south of the city close to the A 140) opened in early April and is the 5th site. There are 1,100 spaces available at a daily rate of £2.50 before 9 am, £2.75 thereafter. (Your comments on this variance would be appreciated.) A 6th site at Cringleford (south-west of the city close to the A 11) will open in the spring of 2005. Ipswich's 3rd facility at Martlesham opened before Christmas and has been heavily criticised in the press for the lack of customers during the day. This should change when buses "loop the loop" around Heath Road roundabout, outside the hospital, later this year.

Manufacturing for congestion

New car registrations in 2003 topped 2.6 million, the highest ever number of vehicles sold in a single year. Nobody knows exactly how many vehicles are on the road but the figure (including untaxed, uninsured and unroadworthy) is over 30 million. In Ipswich the number of households with at least one car now just exceeds 70% (2001 census). That means of course that almost 30% of households do not have access to four-wheeled transport. In some central Ipswich wards (Westgate, Gipping and Alexandra) the figure is nearly 40% The car lobby may be powerful but it's not totally representative even if there are now 49,898 cars and vans for the 49,869 households.

Makro

Readers with long memories will recall the building of McDonald's on the Asda site at Whitehouse in a phenomenal nine days (still the record for a "built on site" restaurant). Now APZ Building Services have built a 100,000 sq ft wholesale warehouse for Makro in 57 days. Given that your house is probably about 1000 sq ft that's one big shed! In fact APZ built three stores in 120 days by moving the various gangs from Ipswich to Chester then to Wolverhampton in sequence. At each of the sites a total of 200 people worked 14 hours each day, 7 days a week to the sequenced programme enabling Makro to open on Day 61 of the contract.

Sky-high living

Elsewhere in this Newsletter you will read about very tall tower blocks as part of the redevelopment proposals down on the Waterfront. It won't surprise you to learn that most of us prefer living close to the ground. The 2001 census reports that only 80 households (out of 49,869) in Ipswich are on the 5th floor or higher - 38 in Westgate ward, 24 in Alexandra, 6 in Gipping and 3 each in Bixley, Holywells and St Margaret's.

Interesting trivia

An inch of rain over the 10,000 acres of Ipswich is one million tonnes of water! Population of Ipswich 117,000 - density 3,000 people per sq kin. 3,942 ha. 50,000 houses.

Pykenham's Gatehouse

As usual the Society together with the Ipswich Building Preservation Trust will be opening the Gatehouse to visitors on the first Saturday in the month, 10.30 am till 12.30 pm. The dates are: I May, 5 June, 3 July, 7 August, 4 September, 2 October. If you still haven't been inside this remarkable 15th century survivor come along, be warmly greeted and see it.