Leaders at Ipswich Borough Council asked to approve unknown extra money for Eastern Gateway industrial park roundabout

Leaders at a Suffolk council are being asked to approve an unknown amount of money for the delivery of a roundabout at an industrial park.

The Eastern Gateway site, formerly a sugar beet factory, in Sproughton Road, was bought by the council Ipswich Borough Council in 2014 and granted Enterprise Zone (EZ) status two years later — meaning it enjoys tax breaks and Government support.

As part of the project’s phase 2c, which sets out the delivery of a new roundabout access off Sproughton Road, the council partnered with Openreach for a fibre diversion comprising ‘a multipackage works programme over a very complex and challenging route’.

The diversion work began in February of this year but Openreach has already used up the money initially put aside for the project, with more being needed to ‘address unforeseen and complex network capacity issues’.

Members of the council’s executive are being asked to approve extra money next Tuesday but Openreach has not yet provided a figure and the amount of money being set aside by the council is confidential due to containing information relating to the financial or business affairs of the council.

Council papers state the project is expected to generate 900 jobs after the first occupier launched in 2020, with 70 per cent of the site already having owners lined up and the remaining portion needing the new roundabout.