Builder buys historic cottages to renovate them
Wednesday, 18th December 2013.
Residents are celebrating what they hope will prove to be the saving of the historic cottages in the high street which had been threatened with demolition.
After St Edmundsbury Borough Council planners threw out Havebury Housing Pasrtnership’s plans to demolish 85/87 High Street in a conservation area, Havebury decided to put the building up for auction in Ipswich and on Tuesday it was bought by a local builder for £51,000.
He says he will restore the cottages and bring them back into use as housing. There are various conditions attached and the whole thing is not quite rubber-stamped until April for various legal reasons, but the residents who initially protested about plans to knock the cottages down are jubilant.
So are English Heritage who had taken enough interest to describe the cottages as historic.
They are believed to be some 200 years old, and may be the oldest buildings left in the high street, but they are said to require a lot of work to stabilise them.
Assuming this all goes to plan, Havebury will now have to come upwith a new proposal for the remaining land around where they hope to build new affordable homes.
After St Edmundsbury Borough Council planners threw out Havebury Housing Pasrtnership’s plans to demolish 85/87 High Street in a conservation area, Havebury decided to put the building up for auction in Ipswich and on Tuesday it was bought by a local builder for £51,000.
He says he will restore the cottages and bring them back into use as housing. There are various conditions attached and the whole thing is not quite rubber-stamped until April for various legal reasons, but the residents who initially protested about plans to knock the cottages down are jubilant.
So are English Heritage who had taken enough interest to describe the cottages as historic.
They are believed to be some 200 years old, and may be the oldest buildings left in the high street, but they are said to require a lot of work to stabilise them.
Assuming this all goes to plan, Havebury will now have to come upwith a new proposal for the remaining land around where they hope to build new affordable homes.
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