Velsheda (The Wine Rack). The crane is up and John Howard has grants totalling £20m from various Government departments. 150 apartments will be built but will be there be buyers?

57 Henley Road. A second attempt to build a house in the garden of 57. This is a small, L-shaped cottage, simple and boringly plain. Being smaller it takes rather less of the six flats amenity space and has a bit more for itself. We objected to the loss of garden of a large house and to the unpleasant little design itself and the general loss to the Conservation Area, particularly of the brick boundary wall to St Edmunds Road and permission was refused. However, the owners have appealed; the decision is awaited. Meanwhile, the owners have marketed the house which does have permission to convert to flats.

Thurleston Cricket Hall, Henley Road. This derelict site has reappeared as a 68-bed care home. Quite exciting plans for similar enterprises of decent architectural expectancy have been approved but never built. The site has now been sold on with change-of-use permission to a large scale developer LNT which sells them on to Ideal Care Homes. It is a routine, off-the- computer set of plans which were done better by Victorian Local Authorities building municipal hospitals and asylums. Considering that it is opposite a listed 1811 mansion, Sparrowe’s Nest, and a group of listed farm buildings makes it all the worse. We shall oppose its design but not its use. Planning permission has been granted, against the views of the Urban Design Officer and the Conservation and Design Panel, to a somewhat modified design.

41 Cowper Street.This proposal to demolish a nice early Victorian three-bay two-storey detached house and replace it by a three house terrace has been granted permission. Because the house is not listed, nor in a conservation area, nor locally listed and not on the Society's 1984 list, it was not possible for the planners to resist the application. In a Local Planning Authority where there is insufficient land for houses, it would have failed on appeal. Interestingly, The Society has just been requested to make suggestions for buildings in such a category to be added to the Borough's Local List.

15 Warrington Road. This application to build a modern single-storey, two-bed dwelling in the, admittedly, spacious rear garden of this 1938 large detached house with access by foot and parking on the donor house front space, was withdrawn at the last moment. There is much neighbourhood opposition as well as by the Conservation and Design Panel and The Ipswich Society. The objective grounds are: the question of the suitability of utilising the rear garden for a dwelling; the foot only access; the turning of the front of the donor house into a gravel car park for a minimum of four cars which would be very destructive to the street scene of a Conservation Area. The matter has not ended there, I feel sure.

There have been some changes to the way in which planning applications are announced to the public. Firstly, a local Notice of the Application is no longer required to be posted on walls or windows or lamp posts near the site. This will mean that neighbours more than two houses away will no longer become aware of an application which might be of importance to them. Close neighbours will still receive letters. This does save the Council Enforcement Officer a considerable amount of time and hence they are available to do their real job.

Secondly, only important applications including all Conservation Area and Listed buildings will be printed in the local press; householder applications for extensions and conservatories and such minor works will no longer appear in the Archant papers. However, a full list will continue to be published on line. Those members who do look at the weekly applications should therefore put the IBC recent planning page on their favourites list: https://www.ipswich.gov.uk/content/planning-applications-received

The number of applications received by the Borough in the last eight weeks has fallen by nearly 50% compared with the similar period last year. Neither I, nor the Planners, have an explanation for this decline; it is not related to the changes in notification noted above.

Mike Cook