Velsheda

Observant readers will have noticed from this issue’s Planning matters column that the skeletal building on the Wet Dock known for years as ‘The Wine Rack’ was given a new name on the planning application. Far from being named after a Nordic goddess, as your editor thought, it is named after a large yacht. Designed by Charles Nicholson and built by Camper & Nicholson in 1933 for Mr W.L. Stephenson, the owner of the Woolworth shop chain, she was built in 1933 at Gosport. She was Nicholson’s second design for a J Class and Stephenson’s second big yacht. ‘Velsheda’ was named after Stephenson’s three daughters, Velma, Sheila and Daphne. So, perhaps quite an appropriate name for a site near ‘Regatta Quay’ (ugh!), sorry, Albion Wharf.

 

Graffiti (or tagging)

While a debate can be had about whether there is a difference between these two words, there have been spates of spray-can and marker-pen writings on buildings, street furniture and even road surfaces in Ipswich. It is a form of permanent litter spread by residents or visitors who, presumably want to ‘make their mark’. The Borough Council’s Graffiti Team has to navigate property-ownership, legal indemnity and relevant permissions, in addition to the use of correct solvents and steam-cleaning, to remove marks. In these times of shrunken budgets, and given the growing problem, we have to be patient and encouraging of our authority. We can all play our part by reporting new graffiti online or by telephone. The quicker it is cleaned off, the less likelihood there is of further marks at the same site (the same principle applies to litter).

 

Which brings us to…

Cable ties: the new litter

Let’s not be too negative, but street advertisers/fly-posters are using more of these nylon fixings to attach placards and notices to railings, fences and posts. If they remove posters after an event, they often leave the almost unbreakable cable ties attached. Perhaps we should all carry a pair of scissors/snippers in our pocket and remove these blighters when we spot them.

 

Photoeast festival

Photoeast returned to Ipswich in May-June 2018 for its second biennial festival of photography. We should be grateful that this regional celebration is based at the University’s Waterfront Building, not least because it enables the use of much of the Wet Dock quays for events: the photography/dance/video performance Carte postale in DanceEast, billboard exhibitions on the northern quays, Mark Power’s Shipping forecast exhibition, lectures, slide- shows in a (very hot) container near the Cult Bar, shows in the reopened La Tour Café etc…

 

“Them bridges agin…”

Our photograph shows Ipswich Society Chairman, John Norman, Ipswich Mayor Cllr. Sarah Barber and our AGM speaker, Suzanne Buck SCC Team Leader on ‘The Bridges’ who summarised progress on the Upper Orwell Crossings projects on April 18, 2018 in the UoS Waterfront Building. This was certainly a topic of great interest and concern to attendees and a fuller account of the evening appears on page 11.