It was, of course, inevitable that the traffic disruption caused by the vital roadworks on the Orwell Bridge, being carried out by National Highways, would bring the Ipswich Northern Route (INR) back into the glare of local news.
Last week, Jack Abbott, MP for Ipswich, demanded Suffolk County Council reopen the debate about creating a Northern Relief Road around the town. He claimed it was “bypass or bust” and accused the council of indecision — suggesting this is the reason Ipswich faces the transport problems it does today.
Neither statement is true, of course. And neither does anything to help the people of Ipswich with the very real transport issues they face.
Far from being indecisive, Suffolk County Council, under the current administration, is the only local authority that has ever had the political will to seriously investigate the project. We took controversial but necessary steps to move the conversation forward. That included:
- A 10-week public consultation
- 11 engagement sessions across local villages and towns
- A detailed Strategic Outline Business Case exploring multiple route options, environmental impacts, and a full analysis of benefits and risks.
The idea that the council avoided this issue, or was indecisive, is frankly nonsense.
The reason the INR did not proceed is simple: local district councils, who hold responsibility for housing, flatly rejected the additional 15,000 homes that would have been required, over and above those already in their local plans, to secure vital government backing. Without that commitment, there was no financial case and no route to government funding. There was also no support from the Member of Parliament at the time, who vociferously opposed any Northern Route through his constituency. And there was, understandably, a loud protest from people living in the area north of Ipswich, whose homes and communities would have been directly impacted by the building of the road.
There was no universal political support for the scheme then, and nothing tells me that has changed in the last six years. Unless, of course, Cllr Topping from East Suffolk Council and Cllr Mellen from Mid Suffolk are now enthusiastically backing the idea of increasing their housing targets and approving a new dual carriageway through their districts. Somehow, I doubt it.
Jack is now running a petition in favour of the INR, but I suspect it will tell us nothing we didn’t already know. We already had clear support from Ipswich residents back in 2018/19. We had backing from the then-MP, Sandy Martin. What Jack seems to believe is that his petition will be so monumentally compelling it will undo all the reasons the INR couldn’t go ahead last time — and somehow make the huge sums of government money magically appear in our coffers to pay for it. It hasn’t — and it won’t.
All this does is raise the hopes of Ipswich residents with a solution that cannot progress — while causing renewed anxiety for residents north of Ipswich that the scheme is back on the table.
Jack is also wrong to claim it is “bypass or bust” for Ipswich. There are plenty of other transport priorities that deserve attention. We need a grown-up conversation about transport in our county town — one that doesn’t stake everything on one scheme like the INR.
We need to look at:
- The long-term vision for the A14 and A12 corridor: upgrades to key junctions and meeting the demands created by nationally significant power generation to the northeast of the town
- The Orwell Bridge: it has a limited shelf life — we need to find a solution
- The growing port of Felixstowe: what road and rail capacity will be needed to support national cargo logistics?
- Sustainable travel within Ipswich: how do we enable more sustainable shorter journeys without relying on new roads?
- And, of course, how best to relieve the strain on Ipswich when the Orwell Bridge is closed
In an effort to move these discussions forward, I am today writing an open letter to the Secretary of State for Transport, inviting them to meet with me, senior transport officers, and Jack Abbott as soon as possible to discuss the future transport needs of Suffolk and Ipswich. We also need to receive the funding that has been promised again and again for transport schemes which still haven’t materialised.
Schemes like:
- The Ely and Haughley rail junction improvements — allowing more freight to shift from road to rail, easing pressure on the A14
- The A12 Major Road Network scheme — delivering much-needed improvements around Woodbridge and between the A12 and A14
Both have been approved. Neither has seen the funding arrive.
It’s not lost on me that as we go through local government reorganisation, and the abolition of our county, district and borough councils, Ipswich Borough Council now wants to recreate a fragmented governance model under its “Greater Ipswich Authority” idea. But such a scenario won’t lead to progress for Ipswich in my view — only more political gameplaying between competing neighbouring authorities resulting in less outcomes and more costs. We’d be left, once again, with one wanting to build the INR and another being asked to take the housing.
Suffolk County Council wants to see a single authority for Suffolk — one that makes smarter, simpler and better decisions for the entire county, including Ipswich – I hope Jack will now support this vision too.
You can read the open letter to Heidi Alexander MP, the Secretary of State for Transport.
