Café pulls out of Post Office deal but interest in units maintained

An independent café that was due to open before Christmas at The Old Post Office in Bury St Edmunds, (pictured above) will now not be going ahead.

But West Suffolk Council has said that it is following up on two exciting leads in the hope of a positive announcement in the near future.

It was back in July that the council, in a joint announcement with the business, announced it had signed heads of terms for the commercial unit at what once was a service yard for the Old Post Office.

Although a full lease hadn’t been signed, the announcement was made ahead of the business making licensing and planning applications and advertising for staff, all of which would have been in the public domain.

Now the café business has pulled out of the agreement.

Diane Hind, the cabinet member for Resources at West Suffolk Council, said: “We have received interest in both units and we and our agents are following up these exciting leads in the hope that before long we will be able to announce more positive news for the town centre.

“We are also continuing to keep the rents under review and are open to offering incentives (in line with the market) such as rent-free periods, stepped rents and contributions towards fit-out.” 

The council’s redevelopment of the former Post Office building delivered 12 apartments which are all sold.

The sales of the 12 apartments have generated close to £4 million, higher than forecast in the council’s business plan.

With the income from the apartments and the projected income from the commercial units, the project, which received cross-party political support, is still expected to pay for itself over its lifetime while also making significant improvements to the town centre including:

• Protecting the unlisted Victorian Cornhill front so that it can be brought back into economic use while improving access and replacing windows to improve energy efficiency;
• Turning an unattractive yard area at the rear of the old Post Office into a new commercial unit;
• Widening Market Thoroughfare by more than 50 per cent at ground floor level from 2.4m to 3.8m to better encourage footfall between the Arc and the historic town centre.

Indy Wijenayaka, cabinet Mmember for Growth at West Suffolk, said: “These improvements are in direct response to many of the 8,000 public comments that shaped the town centre masterplan in 2017 and are things that would not have been achieved had we left the building to the open market.”