- Screen Colours:
- Normal
- Black & Yellow
If Ipswich Borough Council and its successors in title want to keep taxation to minimal levels they should consider selling the family silver!
In 1897 the Corporation was given the right by Parliament to generate the town's electricity. Being Suffolk, they didn't rush into things and it wasn't until 1903 that they began generating electricity for both trams and street lights. The corporation had compulsorily purchased the (horse drawn) Tramway Company for £17,552 in 1901 and converted the system to run on electricity. The Electricity and Tramways Committee was appointed at a Town Council meeting in November 1901 such that the services of each could be combined for their mutual benefit and for the people of the town.
The Seven Acre Field was purchased on Portman's Marshes for the combined electricity power station, tram shed and refuse destructor. You will know the buildings today as those in Constantine Road. The tram sheds are still there, as are the bus company's offices and the power station, now converted into administrative offices for the combined services of SCC and BT. What was innovative in 1901 was the burning of refuse to generate electricity! Electricity generation was transferred to the new coal fired power station at Cliff Quay in 1935, which was compulsorily purchased by the CEGB (i.e. nationalised) in 1948.
The land at Cliff Quay was chosen for a number of reasons. It was in the mutual ownership of the people of Ipswich through Ipswich Port Authority. A site of sufficient size was available and a new quay could be established for the importation of coal. When the port was sold to Associated British Ports in 1997 the power station was still operational and therefore remained under the control of the Central Electricity Generating Board, but following the demolition of the power station the land was returned to the Corporation (by now Ipswich Borough Council) who swapped the fourteen acres for just under five acres on Orwell Quay, and then gave this site to the University.
Towns can only flourish with a clean wholesome supply of drinking water and the Corporation (and others) have been supplying the town for over 800 years, initially with piped water from springs close to the Wilderness Pond In Christchurch Park, but in Victorian times from springs in the Cauldwell Hall (cold well) area, with water piped to Waterworks Street where there was also a bored water supply. The Waterworks Company was purchased by Ipswich Corporation in 1892 but lost to the Anglian Water Authority in 1973 (privatised to become Anglian Water in 1989).
One of Ipswich's little known claims to fame is that it had gas street lighting as early as 1821, the gas being the by-product of coke production for Robert Ransom's foundry. However, like all gas companies, the Ipswich Gas Light Company was nationalised by Attlee's Labour Government in 1948, and then sold (remember "If you see Sid, tell him" campaign) in 1986.
Still- at least we have the bus company .... !
JOHN NORMAN