Issue 2 19 July 2004
Public venue progress Another step along the road to providing a public building with all the facilities 21st century customers demand has been taken. Councillors have now approved a brief for architects, drawn up in consultation with leisure specialists ABL Cultural Consulting, so work can start on designing the interior of the building on the Cattle Market redevelopment site. The brief puts forward a "wish list" to get maximum flexibility, which means we can get the most use and greatest income, but the brief is realistic and recognises that not everything may be possible within the floorspace available and St Edmundsbury's 10million investment. The brief calls for a performing arts venue with a minimum of 500 seats, to make sure we're not competing directly with the Theatre Royal's 350 seats, or 1000 people standing. The Theatre Royal is working closely with a team of councillors and officers on issues such as how the new venue will operate so we can make best use of each other's expertise and facilities. This close working also means we will be able to complement, not duplicate, each other's role. To start with the venue will not run a series of programmed events - although this may come in at a later stage once it's established - so it will be available for hire, which is why it has to be flexible so it appeals to a wide range of groups. The brief calls for a building which is open and transparent and for it to be modern and of high quality. It also needs to fit in with the medieval-style street pattern that is being created in the development to echo | the streets elsewhere in the town. It will be fully accessible throughout to people of all abilities. The brief covers ambience, capacity, seating, staging, catering facilities, acoustics - especially making sure noise cannot be heard outside the building - and all sorts of technical details. If you want to see the brief in full look at the website: www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk ********************************* Next meeting of thefull Council is Tuesday 20 July at 7pm, Council Chamber, Borough Offices, Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds. ************************************ Cinema news You will probably have seen in the local papers that work is starting soon on the cinema off Parkway and that the operators, Cine-UK, expect to line up a Hollywood star to open it. Who will it be? Apparently it depends on what films have a premiere around the opening time - likely to be Christmas 2005. If it's Shrek 3 then it will probably be a jolly green giant! Meanwhile the final touches are being put to the competition to name the cinema . . . watch out for news in the local media later this week and on St Edmundsbury's website: www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk Part of the Parkway surface car park will be taken over by the preparation works from 2 August and temporary road closures will take place in September and October while the water main is moved. Full details of diversions will be in future newsletter issues and in the media. |
| Welcome to Mark "I have recently joined St Edmundsbury where my main role will be to manage the Cattle Market redevelopment project. My role is to make sure the project is delivered to the agreed schedule and budget and that it exceeds expectations in terms of quality. I have joined the council from Cincinnati Lamb UK in Mildenhall, a US based automotive machining systems supplier. I joined the firm from the Ministry of Defence 16 years ago and have worked in a range of procurement and project management roles. Over the last eight years I have managed several multi-million pound manufacturing projects. I have lived in Bury St Edmunds for 16 years and care very much for the future development of the town in which we live. I'm very much looking forward to working with a new team in a new environment on an exciting and challenging project that is crucial to the town." Mark Walsh, Procurement and Project Manager ************************************ Checking the facts Councillors have agreed to appoint retail specialists Chesterton to check the facts in an assessment of the impact the Cattle Market development will have on town centre retailers put forward as part of the planning application by Centros Miller. The cost is being funded by the Planning Delivery Grant, which is money from the Government which we can use for specialist consultancy advice on the Cattle Market. ************************************ Why no roof? Some people have commented on why the proposed new development is not a shopping mall, as seen in so many other towns, with a roof over it to protect shoppers from the weather. This was a deliberate decision taken by councillors because they wanted to build on the unique nature of Bury St Edmunds and felt that open streets, with a grid pattern similar to that of Abbot Baldwin around 1000 years ago, and public | squares, as we already have elsewhere, would help to keep the town centre together instead of having two separate halves. And while Abbot Baldwin's town would have had contemporary-style 11th centuryshops when he was creating a town centre, we will have contemporary-style 21st century shops. There will be some shelter from rain for shoppers because the current design of flats above the shops shows them with balconies, supported on columns, which will form covered verandas. Otherwise - well, plenty of shops in town sell umbrellas! ************************************ 500 short or 650 too many? At last week's Cabinet meeting Cllr Jeremy Farthing, Cabinet member for Environment and Chairman of the Car Parking Working Party said: "When the 1990s Cattle Market scheme was on the drawing board we built a 650 space multi-storey car park to cope with the extra demand. That development never went ahead so for more than a decade this town has had at least 650 spaces more than it has needed - as can be seen by the fact that it's practically empty much of the time. Plus we're creating more spaces in Ram Meadow, bringing more people in to the southern part of the town as well as looking at car parking issues all around the town. And with all this excess capacity we're supposed to be 500 short?" ************************************ Evolution The Cattle Market scheme is constantly evolving as ideas are discussed, taken on board or rejected. Although the formal consultation time set by the law which governs planning applications has technically passed, responses will be taken into consideration right up to the time the final decision is taken by St Edmundsbury's Development Control Committee, set for later this year. This email newsletter aims to keep you up-to-date with progress - please let me know if you wish to be added to or taken off the distribution, or forward it to anyone you think may be interested. Contact: Marianne Hulland, communications@stedsbc.gov.uk |
