Original brickwork around Ipswich’s Christchurch Park damaged by car

A section of the wall around Christchurch Park in Ipswich will have to be rebuilt after a car crashed into it.

Officers were called Fonnereau Road at 7.45am to reports that a car had rolled into the wall and caused “significant damage”.

A Suffolk police spokeswoman said there was not believed to be a driver inside the blue Volvo V40 when it collided with the wall.

The wall, which is made up of flint and old bricks, is part of the park’s original boundary and is thought to be around 100 years old.

Witness Mark Dowling said: “The accident happened at 7.30am this morning. As I approached the gate from the park side a car rolled past and crashed into the wall, no one was inside the car.

“The car was parked behind another and as the front car pulled off the car rolled forward. The driver of the front car stopped in disbelief as it mounted the curb and hit the wall.”

John Craddock, assistant operations manager for buildings and design services at Ipswich Borough Council, was at the scene of the collision.

He said: “Allegedly the handbreak has failed, it was parked up there and it has rolled down the hill and came to rest in our wall.

“We are here because the wall has been structurally damaged. We are conducting a risk assessment and making sure it is safe.

“The plan is to take the wall down because it’s not structurally safe and then it’s a case of rebuilding it.”

Ipswich Borough Council’s contractors were called to put up barriers as it was at risk of collapsing, Mr Craddock said.

He added the wall was part of the original boundary for the park and it will be rebuilt “sympathetically” using “traditional methods”.

“We have got to try and preserve as many of the wall’s original features as we can,” he said. “We will probably try and recover a lot of the brickwork.”