Planners are tomorrow expected to give the green light for 16 new homes to be built beside the historic County Hall building in St Helen’s Street.

The new homes will be built in the courtyard behind the historic building – officially known as St Helen’s Court – after the 1980s extensions are demolished.

Members of Ipswich council’s planning and development committee are being advised to approve the development by their officers after they considered the impact on the listed building. There is still no use planned for most of the historic County Hall – although planning permission to convert the former council chamber into a register office was granted last year.

The internal fittings of the former County Hall building – including the court where Wallis Simpson was granted her divorce in 1936, sparking the abdication crisis – are included in its listing which makes it a challenging building for developers to convert.

Suffolk County Council moved out of the building in 2004 when Endeavour House in Russell Road was opened.

The site was subsequently sold and most of the former County Hall buildings have since been demolished to allow the redevelopment of Suffolk New College and the construction of new flats.