NO MORE work will be carried out on the new TXU building in Russell Road until a buyer can be found for it.The news comes the day after it was announced the company may lose more than half the 1,200 workforce currently employed in Ipswich after the takeover by Powergen.

NO MORE work will be carried out on the new TXU building in Russell Road until a buyer can be found for it.

The news comes the day after it was announced the company may lose more than half the 1,200 workforce currently employed in Ipswich after the takeover by Powergen. It is hoped there will be no compulsory redundancies.

The shell of the new TXU building is now complete, and it is weather-proof – and work has now finished for the construction industry's Christmas break.

But administrators handling the sale of assets of TXU Europe are not going to restart work until a company is found to buy the high-tech building.

Work on the new multi-storey car park for TXU on the other side of Russell Road has also been suspended.

The suspension of work on these two multi-million pound projects is a major blow to Ipswich Village, although the news that the borough council has entered a partnership with GB Railways to build a new car park is a major boost for the area.

Powergen is considering taking up a substantial part of the new building, but has made it clear that it would only do so as a tenant – it doesn't want to own or manage the building itself.

Apart from that there are no major firms looking for large headquarters buildings in Ipswich.

Although the presence of the new Crown Court building down the road could make the development attractive to offices for lawyers if it was sub-divided into smaller units.

Ipswich Council chief executive James Hehir confirmed that work on the buildings had been suspended, but was optimistic that a new buyer would soon be found.

"There are pension funds and property companies looking for opportunities like this," he said.

"Our aim is to get Powergen into the building, it is ideal for them. I really don't think there will be a major problem getting the building ready for them," he said.