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Reporting on changes in town centres today can be depressing at times. It is nine months since I wrote a Street Scene in this format. Shops and businesses are closing in town centres all over the UK, many of them big names we have been brought up with, but new shoots still appear and I have been requested to carry on with this page by popular demand so here are a few of the many positive things going on in Ipswich at the moment.
Cafés and restaurants are big business in most towns these days and Ipswich is no different with an abundance of longstanding independent cafés and coffee shops in the town centre, along our Waterfront and in our wonderful parks.
Here are just some of the recent independent café additions to join Ipswich.
MOMENTS CAFÉ and Coffee Shop run by the St Elizabeth Hospice recently opened in Ipswich Town Hall with its outside seating overlooking the Cornhill fountains. This new café is always very popular.
Right next door in the old Post Office on Cornhill we now have THE BOTANIST restaurant and bar with seating and planters spilling out onto Cornhill. A smart venue in the recently restored Grade II listed Post Office building and always busy.
The ever popular Ipswich independent Patisserie and Café BONBON with its home-made produce has recently moved from its small shop into the former Patisserie Valerie unit in Butter Market giving it much more space and indoor seating.
H&R DESSERTS is another independent cakes and ice cream café which has just opened in Westgate Street.
New Ipswich independent HARRY'S Handmade Doughnuts and café with its kitchen on the top floor has opened on the ground floor in Sailmakers Shopping Centre with seating along the front.
Next door, another independent café and sandwich shop, the VITAMIN BAR, has opened; its speciality being bubble drinks and it is popular with young and older alike.
The ARKANA COFFEE HOUSE with outside seating has opened in the recently restored former Green and Hatfield antique dealer’s shop in St Margarets Plain.
The smart independent TAKAYAMA Japanese Restaurant has opened in St Nicholas Street, as has the popular independent ST NICHOLAS SANDWICH SHOP with its homemade bread, deli- style sandwiches, and artisan cakes.
The ENCORE COFFEE HOUSE and cakes café has opened to the public in the Hope Church in the restored former Odeon Cinema complex in St. Margarets Street while the RIVER CAFE has opened in the River Church in St Mary-at-the-Quay in Key Street.
The BISHOPS PARLOUR CAFÉ has opened in the completely refurbished old stable block in Holywells Park and runs an additional coffee and ice cream kiosk by the recently reopened children's playground with its splash fountains and new play equipment. (We understand the Heritage Lottery restored ORANGERY in Holywells Park is scheduled for a smarten up later this year.)
New shops continue to appear filling the empty gaps around town. Recently, LEADING LABELS, a new entry for Ipswich, has opened in Sailmakers Shopping Centre in the former TopShop unit and BLUEINC has opened a new and smarter shop in the former TopMan unit while their old shop is being refitted for BODYCARE, yet another new name for Ipswich.
VERNON FOX DISCOUNT STORE is reported to be opening soon in the large former JJB unit under the old Woolworth store in Carr Street.
McColls stores were taken over by Morrisons earlier this year and the Ipswich McColls by Tower Ramparts Bus Station has now become a MORRISONS DAILY. Ipswich already has a large Morrisons on the edge of town. WOODGREEN ANIMAL SHELTERS Charity Shop is opening in the former Joules in Butter Market.
Some fairly substantial building projects are planned or are under way around the town. On 19 June the new 99 bedroom IPSWICH CENTRAL TRAVELODGE is due to open on Russell Road/Chancery Road backing onto the ITFC football stadium. The former Staples and Better Gym site next to the hotel has been bought by the new ITFC owners and the retail warehouses have been demolished ready to create a new, much more visible and smarter entrance to the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand with its approach from the nearby railway station, while a new pitch is being laid in the football stadium reported as having undersoil heating, high-draining sand will be installed below a modern hybrid surface (a combination of natural and artificial grass) and served by a new sprinkler and irrigation system.
ARRAS SQUARE in St. Stephens Lane has been getting tired in recent years and is scheduled for a major makeover starting later this year to complete in 2024. Erect Architects have been working with Ipswich Borough Council to develop the design which includes new seating, paving, drainage, lighting, CCTV, litter bins and trees as well as a new mural following a poll carried out by the Ipswich Star, which selected Arras Square as the public’s top priority for improvements.
The restoration and conversion of Grade II listed ST STEPHENS CHURCH into a MUSIC VENUE is nearing completion. The church, owned by Ipswich Borough Council, is being converted into a live music and community entertainment venue for up to 225 people. During the daytime there will be a café and meeting place for like-minded creatives, students, and the wider community with the ability to host events and exhibitions plus a range of live music performed in the evenings.
Meanwhile Phase 2 of the ST. CLEMENTS CHURCH ARTS CENTRE is well under way with the addition of toilets and other ancillaries.
Galliard Homes have started constructing many NEW HOMES ON GRAFTON WAY situated along the north bank of the River Orwell and opposite Ipswich railway station. The residential community is expected to comprise a mix of two-bed, three-bed, and four-bed homes which together will provide almost 160,000 square feet of housing once complete and will include making up a wider and much improved public river path between Stoke Bridge and Princes Street Bridge.
The THOMAS WOLSEY HOUSE retirement apartments and adjoining housing complex by McCarthy Stone on the former Archant newspapers site between Lower Orwell Street and Turret Lane is nearly complete. Some landscaping is being added which will hopefully soften this rather brutal looking building over time.
House building continues in abundance on the WOLSEY GRANGE development off London Road and Hadleigh Road by the Holiday Inn, as well as at the BOURNE VIEW development on Bourne Hill and work continues on the GARDEN SUBURB (Northern Fringe) development. The total size of the new development that stretches from Henley Road west to Tuddenham Road in the east will be between 3,000 and 3,500 homes – that is adding about 10,000 residents to Ipswich.
The BUTTERMARKET Centre makeover is finally complete with new smarter signage over the front and rear entrances to the retail and leisure complex. The front of the former BHS has been tidied up with neat boarding over the doors and windows while it awaits its future.
PLANTERS and SEATING have been installed near the Thomas Wolsey statue in St. Peters Street as part of the ‘Greener Ipswich Project’, while more planters have been placed along ST. PETERS WHARF where the hoardings have been tidied up with some very eye catching, mostly commissioned, street murals. The project was organised by Art Eat Events, a community art organisation from Ipswich, and was a part of the Hullabaloo 22 programme, a series of activities funded by Suffolk County Council's Covid Continuity Fund for Culture.
Tim Leggett
Below: Bodycare, Bonbon, Harry's handcrafted doughnuts, Takayama, Vitamin Bar, Travelodge, Public murals on the dock.