Restoration and environmental work to Victorian Cornhill front

25 Aug 2021

Restoration work and environmental improvements will be made to the front of the former Post Office in Bury St Edmunds town centre over the coming months.

Work to protect the Victorian front at 17 -18 Cornhill in Bury St Edmunds has already seen a facade retention system in place for nine months while the rest of the building, much of it built at a later date, was demolished. A steel frame was then built and connected to the front allowing the facade retention system to be removed in July.

Now scaffolding has started to go up at the Cornhill front. This will allow restoration work to take place alongside the installation of new windows to aid the energy efficiency of the building which will include solar panels for electricity and be heated by an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) using the reversal of a process used to keep food and drink cool in a fridge.

Once completed next year, West Suffolk Council’s redevelopment on the site will include two ground floor commercial units with 12 flats above. It will also bring the historic frontage back into economic use, deliver a wider walkway at Market Thoroughfare and create a new business front onto St Andrews St South, all things that members of the public asked for in some of the 8000 public comments that shaped the town centre masterplan adopted by the council in December 2017.

Cllr Susan Glossop, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Growth said: “The Victorian front is an important part of our town’s history and heritage. This scaffolding enables work to further help protect and enhance the front which is in the town centre conservation area. Not only that, but it also enables us to carry out improvements that will help us achieve our environmental ambitions for this site, for the businesses that will work there and the residents who will live there. Our investment demonstrates our confidence in the future of the high street as a place where people live and work, as well as shop, socialise, enjoy a meal or take part in other leisure and cultural activities including those we hold in The Apex, Moyse’s Hall Museum, our markets, and in the Abbey Gardens.”

For more background on the development, visit www.westsuffolk.gov.uk/cornhill

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