Summer colour added to St Andrews Street in Bury St Edmunds

Summer colour is being added to a drab Bury St Edmunds street after residents called for more town centre greenery.

Earlier this year, St Edmundsbury Borough Council and partners including OurBuryStEdmunds and Bury St Edmunds Town Council, held a series of public engagement events and ran a questionnaire asking for people’s views on the town centre. The aim was to understand the issues and options that will shape a draft masterplan for the town centre.

The visual appearance of St Andrews Street South was highlighted by residents who also called for more town centre greenery.

Now, on the same day that the results of the questionnaire have been published online, St Edmundsbury, OurBuryStEdmunds, Bury St Edmunds Town Council, the Arc centre management and Bury in Bloom have unveiled seven new planters in St Andrews Street South.

Melanie Lesser from Bury in Bloom said: “This project fits in with the RHS Greening Grey Britain campaign which makes a promise to turn hard, grey areas into vibrant urban spaces, to enrich lives and benefit the environment.

“It is an area of the town that has had little planting in the past, now with the new planters and hanging baskets we can add some summer colour. Then in the autumn we will be planting real trees in five of the planters to give an all year round planting scheme

“The planters have been specially built with fork lift slots so they can easily be moved to another area of the town if St Andrews Street has any other layout changes in the future.”

Mark Cordell from OurBuryStEdmunds said: “We are delighted to be working with Bury in Bloom, the town and borough councils to try improve the appearance of St Andrew’s Street, the seven new planters will go some way towards improving this important thoroughfare which links the old and new parts of our lovely town.”

Councillor Andrew Speed, Chairman of Bury St Edmunds Town Council said: “St Andrews Street needs significant improvement. The new planters are an interim improvement whilst we work on a longer term solution for the area.”

St Edmundsbury Borough councillor Alaric Pugh, chairman of the Bury St Edmunds Town Centre Working Group, said: “Today we have published more than 5,000 comments that we received as part of the first stage of our public engagement that will shape the draft masterplan for Bury St Edmunds Town Centre.

“Among those comments were calls for the appearance of St Andrews St South to be improved and for more town centre greenery. While I anticipate that there will be greater changes suggested when the draft masterplan which also looks far into the future, comes forward, this is a start and shows our commitment to work with our partners including Bury in Bloom, Our Bury St Edmunds and Bury St Edmunds Town Council to bring improvements to the town centre.

“The metals tree sculptures meanwhile, which were paid for by developers, will not go to waste and will have an appropriate and attractive new home at the car park entrance to the Arc.”