Over £1 million of the Government’s Town Fund cash has been agreed for three Ipswich projects. £940,000 will go to the new Net Zero Skills Campus and Sustainable Construction Centre at Suffolk New College and the Cornhill old Post Office Building will receive £230,000 to upgrade the building ahead of it becoming a new restaurant for the Botanist Group.
The Greener Ipswich / Oasis Project will receive £80,000 with the money being released early for proof of concept. If the funds were released later in the year it would miss the spring planting season which is vital for trees going into the ground.
IBC leader David Ellesmere said: “We have not received the majority of the funding from the government yet – that is reliant on them agreeing the business cases for the individual projects we have put in, however in common with most other Town Deals we have received a small proportion of the funding up front without the business cases having to be agreed.”
Ipswich MP Tom Hunt said “I’m looking forward to seeing progress on all of these projects once the funds are released. I know the projects are doing business proposals at the moment, I think they’re all at an exciting stage.”
For the Greener Ipswich project, one of the sites that is generating early interest as a possible location for greening up is around the Novotel roundabout and ‘grassy knoll’ area outside St Peter’s by the Waterfront church. This area has high levels of traffic pollution and is seen as a ‘physical barrier’ to footfall from the town center via the ‘Saints’ (St Nicholas Street & St. Peter’s Street) to the Waterfront. If the area has sympathic planting in Spring this may help with both these issues.
For more details see the Ipswich Star website.