THE main bus station serving county passengers travelling to Ipswich has closed for three months while it is rebuilt.

The work on the Old Cattle Market station behind the Buttermarket Centre is part of the £21 million Travel Ipswich programme which is due to transform the town by the end of next year.

The station will be resurfaced and new shelters will be introduced which will be fitted with electronic signs giving passengers details about services from the station.

The closure of the station means that bus services have been moved to other bus stops around the town centre.

Bus companies have been giving passengers details of the changes over recent weeks and there are posters explaining where buses are leaving from on the Buttermarket centre itself.

A new temporary travel office for First Eastern Counties passengers is due to open in the Buttermarket next week.

Clive Wilkinson, Suffolk County Council’s Travel Ipswich project manager, said: “The improvements to the Old Cattle Market Bus Station will make it a much more welcoming and user-friendly place, changes we believe will encourage more people to use public transport.

“This is only one part of the much wider programme of works being carried out across the town – which includes the installation of a sophisticated traffic management system to make traffic flow better and the creation of new cycle routes.”

Once work on the Old Cattle Market bus station has been completed, attention will switch to Tower Ramparts, which handles town bus services. That will also be closed for three months with work completed by Christmas.

The Ipswich Star is running the I Love Ipswich campaign to highlight improvements in our town. What do you think of the bus station plan?