As someone who was born in Bury St Edmunds and lived there  for many years before moving to Ipswich, I am fascinated by the similarities which you don't see when you have never lived in a town. As a day visitor you get a completely different perspective from that of a resident. 

I have lived in several towns and cities in my time, long enough to get a wider view of the situation in each town than the day visitor, and it seems that most towns have very similar problems and the locals, who have never lived anywhere else, seem to think it is only their town that has these problems. They look at other towns through rose-tinted glasses, impressed by the glossy shops they've not seen before. It has been said you should go at least two streets back from the centre of any town before you start to see the ‘real town. ‘All that glisters is not gold’. Day visitors often miss the busy traffic at rush hour and anti-social behaviour at night and don't notice the potholes etc. The graffiti and deprivation in parts of Norwich are awful. 

Cllr David Ellesmere mentioned in his talk to The Ipswich Society at the Methodist Church in October last year that people who move into Ipswich from other towns seem to love it; it is mainly the long-term residents who have never lived anywhere else who ‘run down’ the town and give it its poor reputation. I remember dear old Bob Pawsey, a member of the Executive Committee of the Ipswich Maritime Trust who sadly died recently, saying that if Ipswich was closer to somewhere like Haverhill or Harlow people would realise what a great place Ipswich is. The trouble is they will always compare it with Norwich which is not a typical UK town. Indeed, it is known as ‘A fine city’ and is really the only place in Norfolk with the big shops. 

Bob and myself were both born in Bury St Edmunds and both adopted Ipswich as our home town. We both loved Bury but agreed that Ipswich was a much nicer and more interesting town to live in than Bury, as do many other people I know who have done the same thing. When my old neighbour in Ipswich, who had been born and bred in Bury, told me he was moving, I asked if he was moving back there. ‘Good God, no!’ was his immediate reply. I'm not knocking Bury, just pointing out that a day visitor's perception of a town is very different from that of a local. 

I have an old friend called Bob who lives in Harrogate which always rates as one of the happiest places to live in the UK. Even Ipswich has often rated in the top five of such rather futile studies. It depends on who and how many people you ask, what the weather is like that day, is it Monday or Friday and where they live in that town. As my younger brother said: ‘They’ve never asked me.’. Harrogate is also rated to be one of the prettiest towns. 

Bob's son came into Ipswich on a Tall Ship a couple of years ago and Bob, who had never been to Ipswich before, phoned me and said he was coming to pick up his son and suggested we meet up. He came down the day before and stayed over and we had a wander round Ipswich town centre, Christchurch Park and the Waterfront. Bob said, ‘Isn't it lovely here’. I exclaimed, ‘But you live in Harrogate!’. Bob replied, ‘But we don't have anything like this in Harrogate’ 

(referring to the Waterfront) saying, ‘It's a two-and a-half-hour drive to the sea from where we are!’ I mentioned Betty's Tearooms. ‘Bettys!’ he exclaimed. ‘We don't go near Betty’s; that's where the tourists go. There's always a long queue, it's very expensive and most decent towns have something similar anyway, but not as hyped up.’ Me: ’What about your parks?’ Bob replied, ‘I've only seen Christchurch Park in Ipswich and I know you have others. Christchurch Park is as good as any of our parks.’ So that was the view of a day visitor to Ipswich living in Harrogate.’ 

Getting to the point of Street Scene: many people in Ipswich will say that Ipswich has no shops. ‘We go to Bury to shop’ they say. Quite frankly, Colchester is much closer, cheaper to park in and has many more shops than Bury. However, when I lived in Bury St Edmunds we used to go to Ipswich to shop. Apart from the many smaller shops in Ipswich which Bury didn't have (I used Tecno a lot for my video gear), Ipswich also had the bigger shops such as BHS, Littlewoods, C&A, Co-op Department Store, Owen Owen, Habitat, Maplins, Toys-R-Us and many more which Bury has never had. This is partly why Bury has fewer empty units than some other towns today. It never had these shops in the first place to lose. It has, as with everywhere else, lost all the big names it did have such as Laura Ashley, Woolworths, Top Shop, Debenhams and many others. It lost its Thorntons several years before Ipswich, the same with Patisserie Valerie and Mothercare – it never had Mamas and Papas – and its HMV has been closed for some-time where, as I write, it's still hanging in there in Ipswich. Bury also has its fair share of vape shops, phone shops, coffee shops and barbers. 

Bury St Edmunds’ Cornhill Shopping Centre has been empty and derelict for six years now with plans to turn it into flats. Like Ipswich, in the 1980s developers created a shopping mall in BSE called St Edmund's Fayre with small units not unlike the shopping mall annexe to the Buttermarket Shopping Centre which eventually became BHS. Like Ipswich, the mall in Bury was a disaster and after a couple of years of mainly empty units was converted into one shop where Iceland is today. 

When you go to another town for the day you will always see shops that they have that you don't have in your own town and think you are missing out. It's quite likely that your town will have something similar under a different name that the others don't have, such as the abundance of jewellery shops found in most towns. You can be sure visitors to Ipswich have a similar experience. People from Bury who come to Ipswich will see Trespass. Tessuti, Primark, Deichmann, Flying Tiger, Blue Inc. and Leading Labels, Yours, The Military Unit, Twist ’n’ Shout, Geek Retreat and things like SuperBowl, the Boom Battle Bar and many more which they don't have in BSE. Out of town there are John Lewis, Go Outdoors, Smyths Toys and numerous other stores not found in BSE. Alas, day visitors regularly miss the little gold mines of St Nicholas Street and St Peters Street and other side streets crammed full of independent shops and cafés. 

When The Ipswich Society gave a tour round Ipswich for some pupils from King Edward VI Upper School in Bury recently, apart from being surprised and impressed by the Waterfront which they had been totally unaware even existed, they got very excited when they found Krispy Kreme in the Buttermarket, unheard of in Bury. So, different people and different ages have different priorities. Older people will look at our wonderful hospital, theatres, dance school etc. 

 

Now and the future

Let’s look at Ipswich today. Ipswich has a number of empty shop units today just like every other town. Ipswich is doing better than many, but like all towns today you will find Turkish Barbers, Nail Bars, Phone Shops and Kebab Shops galore, not to mention Coffee Shops. Do you ever see an empty Costa or Nail Bar? There were always lots of Charity Shops, it's just that they have  become more prominent as they move more central, filling the empty units with next to no rent under their charity status. Charity shops are becoming more and more in demand with the recent ‘Cost of Living Crisis’ and the charities rely on them to survive. 

Like many towns and cities Ipswich boasts an empty BHS, Debenhams and Co-op Department Store. The last time I was in the fine city of Norwich there was a row of tents and sleeping bags belonging to homeless people along the front of the old Debenhams – much the same story in many other towns. In Ipswich we are lucky that all three of these big stores have found, buyers and although it may take some time, eventually they will all be in use again. The Fraser Group own both the BHS site and the H&M site and have retail plans for both of them and it was announced this week that H&M are looking for another site in Ipswich town centre and have considered the empty Grimwades store amongst others. 

Sailmakers/Tower Ramparts Shopping Centre had new owners in September and now nearly every unit is in use with others marked ‘Let agreed’. On the ground floor of the Buttermarket Centre there is only one empty unit: the former small Boots branch – whilst the upper floors have been converted to leisure with a gym, a thriving Superbowl and a 14-screen multiplex with recliner seats and sofas. There's also a big open space often used for public events. 

As a ‘Bury boy’ I love Ipswich being surrounded by Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, amenities: Jimmy's Farm, Alton Water, Suffolk Food Hall, Suffolk Ski and Leisure Park, Foxhall Stadium and small towns such as Felixstowe, Woodbridge, Hadleigh, Constable Country (Willy Lotts Cottage and Flatford Mill) and the Shotley Peninsula and Pin Mill etc. All of these are just minutes away by car; also Ipswich has a main line railway station. The nearest amenity to Bury was Ickworth and not a lot more. The trains were less frequent and the station parking was awful. We always used to go to Ipswich from Bury for the football and the wonderful theatres and choice of shops. 

I think I have made my point. Ipswich with its lovely buildings, theatres, parks and river and fast connections to London is surrounded by AONBs and is a stunning place, wildly underrated by the few who make the most noise. Bury raves about their Abbey Gardens which, apart from the Cathedral and Abbey ruins, is not much more than a flat area with a few flower beds. Castle Park in Colchester has better flowers and facilities than the Abbey Gardens but Bury, quite rightly, are good at ‘crowing’ about the things they have. Ipswich should be doing the same.  

To finish, here are some of the new businesses which have opened in town since the last Street Scene in the October 2022 Newsletter:-

HARRY’S Handcrafted Doughnuts and Coffee Shop; 

I LOVE NOODLE; GRAPE ESCAPE; 

LEADING LABELS and BLUE INC.;   BROWS ON FLEEK; 

STEAM HOUSE CAFE;   BAR A- to-Z ;   CANCER CAMPAIGN IN SUFFOLK; 

MADE IN SUFFOLK Art Shop;   YMCA;   MULAN KITCHEN;   TOASTED.

Coming Soon:-

BODY in MIND;   MINUTEMAN PRESS, Tacket Street;   FRANKLINS moving closer to the centre;   H&M looking for a new site in the town centre.

Tim Leggett

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