Opinion: Big plans from Ipswich council need delivery

It has produced a masterplan looking at how the former cattle market on Portman Road (as opposed to the Old Cattle Market, near Fore Street) should be developed with an aquatic centre, a new hotel, a new multi-storey car park and lots of open space linked to a new east stand at the football ground.

Then it was going to look at moving out of its 18-year-old offices in Grafton House and converting them into new flats while its staff would relocate to new offices nearer the town centre - giving a boost to the shops and cafes there.

If these plans actually happen then that would be fantastic - a real boost to a town centre which, let's face it, badly needs an injection of really good news.

But then before I started dancing on the ceiling I stopped for a minute, took a deep breath and got a really necessary reality check.

The fact is, this is Ipswich Borough Council that we're talking about. It's an organisation whose heart may be in the right place but really doesn't know the meaning of the word dynamism!

The idea of closing Crown Pools and building a new aquatics centre on the former cattle market in Portman Road was first discussed by the borough in 2006.

That was the year the organisation moved IN to Grafton House after leaving the old Civic Centre building that had been its home since the 1960s.

So after 18 years of "shall we move, or shan't we?" We finally have a masterplan produced for the area.

It looks eminently sensible. An aquatics centre with all the town really wants from such a facility, a new hotel, a multi-storey car park to make up for all the "temporary" spaces that have been used for parking since the 1970s.

But there is no real word on where the money for the scheme is coming from. There's a vague idea that the Crown Pools site would be used for sheltered housing - but nothing concrete. 

And all that is really going to be decided next week is the next stage in the bureaucratic process to get the ball rolling.

Please excuse my scepticism, but why should anyone be too excited about the prospects of the council going ahead with such a major project when it's taken five years to try to smarten up the paving in Arras Square - and failed miserably in what should be such a simple task?

As I said, I do feel everyone at the borough wants to do the best for the town but they get bogged down in committees, sub-committees, working parties and local forums - and too often cannot ignore the temptation to defer any decision they can!

The same goes for the idea of moving out of Grafton House and converting it into flats.

Grafton House opened in 2006 - the same year Ipswich Council started talking about an aquatics centre in Portman Road. (Image: Newsquest)

It sounds like a great idea - but I cannot imagine the effort that will be required by an army of planners, accountants, administrators, and auditors to work out what needs to be done.

I think that highlights a problem that exists far beyond Ipswich Borough Council. The fact is that we have evolved a system of checks and balances that effectively stifles any attempt at a fleet-footed response to a change in economic circumstances.

It's clear that there isn't the demand for offices that there was pre-pandemic, that the demand isn't going to come back and that having "mixed areas" of commercial/employment and residential properties sitting next to each other is the way forward.

But you have to spend so much time, effort and money jumping through hoops to prove that! By the time the decision is made the problem is either 10 times worse than it was at the start - or it has been resolved in some other, less satisfactory, way.

The opinions expressed in this column are the personal views of Paul Geater and do not necessarily reflect views held by this newspaper, its sister publications or its owner and publisher Newsquest Media Group Ltd.