Ipswich council is making the first moves towards developing a new 60-home estate on the site of the former Tooks bakery at Old Norwich Road in the town.

And that could be the first stage of a much larger development on the King George V playing fields which will see Whitton United get a new ground – and other pitches move to a field beside the Whitton sports’ centre.

The borough owns the former bakery site – but not the playing fields. It hopes to build about 60 homes and a “community facility” - possibly a new doctors’ surgery.

Ipswich councillor responsible for housing

• See photos of the old bakery in our Kindred Spirits feature here John Mowles said it’s not been decided whether the homes would be built for council tenants, the open market or a mixture of the two.

“At the moment we are still looking at what the tenure of the homes would be.

“The rules over what are considered ‘affordable’ homes by the government seems to be changing regularly so we need to look at what would be best for the site.”

He did think it was unlikely that the site would be 100% council housing like the 108-home Bader Close development on the other side of the town.

The development of the bakery site is vital for the redevelopment of the whole playing field site because it would provide the access to the site.

A major redevelopment scheme for the site was drawn up in 2005, but was not followed up because of a number of problems.

Access could not be secured over the former bakery site, there were planning objections to developing new playing fields next to Whitton Sports Centre on the edge of Mid Suffolk’s council area – and the recession made it uneconomic.