Car park changes

A water main is now being moved so work can start on the new cinema but this means some changes to car park access and traffic flows.

The main entrance to Parkway car park will temporarily move to Chalk Road North from 30 August to 27 September. Vehicles will be able to use the car park exit at all times. In September the northbound stretch of Parkway next to the cinema site will be closed for two weeks (there will be single lanes in each direction along the southbound carriageway) and then part of Kings Road will be closed for a few weeks in October. Look out for more details in this newsletter nearer the time.

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You have to be in to win!

Citygrove Securities, the company building the cinema for Cine-UK, has donated a spectacular prize for the person who comes up with a name for the cinema complex, which will have eight screens and four family-orientated restaurants.

The prize? Two flights to New York, four nights in a hotel and 500 US dollars to spend! Entry is open to anyone who lives, works or studies in our borough. Entry forms are available from council offices, leisure centre, Tourist Information Centre and bus station - or download it from our website (click on it from the homepage): www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk

Consultation time extended

Many people have returned the coupon from the Cattle Market consultation leaflet sent out by the company Halogen on behalf of Centros Miller, our development partner. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to respond. All comments - from individuals, groups, our partners, and authorities such as the Highways Agency and English Heritage, through both the Centros Miller and our own consultations - will feed in to the planning process. The Development Control Committee will make its decision later this year - no date has been set yet.

As there has been so much interest - and some people said they hadn't seen the leaflet - we asked Centros Miller to extend the consultation period and they have done so - you now need to send in comments by Monday 16 August.

All the feedback from the consultation organised by Halogen, including the leaflet, exhibition, workshops and meetings with interest groups, will be tabulated and analysed and a full report provided to Centros Miller and St Edmundsbury. The supporting documentation will include every single letter, questionnaire, hotline message and email received.

If you would like a copy of the consultation leaflet email cattlemarket@burysteds.org.uk or phone 01242 256805.

Centros Miller development manager Tony Williams said: "We have received more than 1000 responses so far and we are currently considering these and how the issues raised might be addressed."

Extending the centre

The historic centre of Bury St Edmunds is set out on a medieval grid with a sequence of linked public spaces. The masterplan for the Cattle Market site extends this historic pattern on the same scale.

There are various links between the historic centre and Cattle Market site, including Brentgovel Street, Market Thoroughfare, Central Walk and Woolhall Street. As St Andrews Street North car park gets busier it's likely that St John's Street will also be busier as people use it to get into town.

All those links are well-established and used by thousands of people now. Substantial work is planned for Market Thoroughfare to make it wider and more attractive. Plans include buying the Post Office - which will then relocate - and using part of it to widen the passageway. Currently the idea is to have an arcade of small shops at ground and first floor level and the passageway roofed with glass and lit. The effect will be to create a light, bright - and wider - route. Ideas such as this are always evolving as consultation responses are considered.

At the St Andrews Street South end the idea is to create two new shops - giving a frontage around the same size as Cornhill Walk - which would create an attractive link between the Cattle Market development and historic centre. At the Cornhill end the plan is to make the link stand out, probably with built out paving and by making the upper floor level look more attractive.

In the future, the owners of the building on the other side of the passageway from the Post Office could, if they wished, create their own shop frontages, improving the link still further.

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Working in partnership

The possibility of redeveloping the Cattle Market has been under discussion for decades - even when it was still being used as a cattle market which would have needed relocation. Various ideas have been discussed but not gone ahead, for a variety of reasons, which led to large numbers of people telling us throughout all our consultation that they fear this scheme will go the same way as others.

the bank but very little say in how the project developed.

Councillors took the decision to go into partnership with a developer because there would then be more opportunity to influence the project throughout each stage. They chose Centros Miller from a range of developers who wanted to work with us. This decision means we keep possession of the land (it's leased to the developer for 150 years) and we get an income from the development when it's built.

One result of this partnership is the extensive consultation - we are now in the third major phase (the others led to the masterplan) - which we instructed the developer to carry out. Usually the first the public gets to know of such developments is when a planning application is submitted - we have insisted that people are consulted throughout the process and have promised to listen to everyone (although obviously it's going to be impossible to agree with everyone).

Centros Miller, our development partner, is a property development company used to working in partnership with councils. Other schemes the company's developed, or is developing, are in Chesterfield, Greenwich, Wrexham, Portsmouth and Boston, Lincolnshire.

Michael Hopkins Architects are the people responsible for the design, based on extensive research of building materials used throughout the town during its history. This internationally-renowned architectural practice has won numerous awards and its project team for our development is led by practice director Jim Greaves. Other work by the firm includes the Parliamentary building at Westminster, Glyndebourne Opera House, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Norwich Cathedral Education and Visitors' Centre and - closer to home - Greene King's distribution centre.

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Newsletter

This newsletter is from St Edmundsbury Borough Council, the owner of the Cattle Market redevelopment site. Please forward it to anyone you think may be interested in it, or contact me if you wish to be taken off the distribution list: marianne.hulland@stedsbc.gov.uk

The decision on Centros Miller's planning application will be taken by St Edmundsbury's Development Control Committee later this year.