IPSWICH waterfront should be transformed by the year 2007.Both the rebuilding of the Cranfields site and the redevelopment of Pauls Maltings should be completed by that summer.

IPSWICH waterfront should be transformed by the year 2007.

Both the rebuilding of the Cranfields site and the redevelopment of Pauls Maltings should be completed by that summer.

Work on the Cranfields site is due to start by the end of this year and is scheduled to be completed in 2007.

That will see the construction of a 23-storey tower block of flats, an 80-bedroom hotel, shops, restaurants and a new headquarters for Dance East.

The Cranfields site already has planning permission – but the scheme has taken seven years from the closure of the mill to reach this stage.

The Pauls Maltings site has only just been bought by developers, and it will take several months before a detailed plan is even lodged with Ipswich council.

However planning officers are already involved in discussions with Knight Developments and its architect David Charles about what should happen to the buildings – and malting work is to continue there until the end of the year in any case.

A formal planning application is expected to be submitted by the end of this year or early in 2005.

Hopefully by then all the difficult issues will have been sorted out and it will be a relatively non-controversial matter by the time it comes before the borough's planning and development committee.

Knight Developments managing director William Anthony said he did not expect work to start on the site until this time next year – and experts estimate the conversion work on the large site could take between 18 months and two years.

That would mean it would be completed in 2007, at about the same time as the Cranfield's site is completed.

What do you think of the waterfront developments? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk