In 1909, Ipswich Museum acquired a giraffe standing nearly 17 feet tall. There was just one small problem. The railway bridges weren't high enough. What followed was a feat of Edwardian ingenuity, an inspector who wisely refused to become a jockey, and a rather secretive team of glaziers.
The first Ipswich International Film Festival (IIFF) opens at King Street Cinema on Saturday, 31 October, with a 35mm screening of cult classic Shadow of the Vampire, followed by a Q&A with the film's producer, Richard Johns.
Residents at an Ipswich care home have passed on their life lessons to Suffolk New College students, urging them to join a club, play sport, and get out and meet people.
Suffolk's two-tier system is almost certainly finished, and a single county-wide authority is the likeliest replacement. But the county council's leader is not ready to accept that the choice is limited to the two business cases already sitting on ministers' desks.
Suffolk's police and crime commissioner has thrown his weight behind a merger with Norfolk, warning he would go "over my dead body" to stop Suffolk being swallowed into a larger eastern region alongside Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
The Poundland store in Ipswich's Sailmakers centre could be at risk after the discount retailer's US owner moved towards appointing administrators, threatening thousands of jobs nationwide.
He wrote some of Britain’s best-loved songs, entertained troops during the Second World War and died in Ipswich. Decades later came the extraordinary discovery that he had secretly won two Olympic gold medals – except he had not.
Ipswich.co.uk can exclusively reveal that Ipswich has not made the shortlist for UK City of Culture 2029. The town that was the first in the country to declare its ambition is out, and the questions start now.
In 2021, inspectors found that Ipswich Hospital's maternity tower failed national design standards and that maternity services "required improvement". Five years on, midwives say almost nothing has changed, and a £98m plan to replace the building rests on a decision due within days.
Suffolk County Council has backed a motion to explore holding a countywide referendum on housing asylum seekers, with 60% of councillors voting in favour. The decision followed a heated debate which exposed sharp divisions over cost, legality and motive.
Ipswich Borough Council has the legal powers to force owners to clean up neglected buildings in our town, but it hasn't used them on a single commercial property in at least five years. Ipswich.co.uk asks why.
A mother needs an emergency C-section, immediately. When the lifts serving Ipswich Hospital's maternity block aren't working – which, according to midwives, they often aren't – it could take 13 minutes to carry her to theatre. It could be too late. Ipswich.co.uk investigates.
Suffolk's rate of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) is above national and regional averages, and has risen over four years. The council says the government is shortchanging it, but a local teenager's account reminded councillors what those numbers represent.
A decade of research led by two organisations in Suffolk has found that survivors of child sexual abuse wait an average of 15 years before they access support.
Suffolk County Council told councillors on Thursday, 17 September, that it had no preferred solution to the A14 around Ipswich, and that "all options" remained firmly on the table as its cabinet approved £300,000 for a Pre-Strategic Outline Business Case.
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Lucy Howard spent the early hours in her vegetable patch with “the robins and the sunrise” while struggling with postnatal depression. Now she has swapped wealth management for her own garden design business.
Motorcyclists, volunteers, supporters and local businesses came together for the Richard Collins Charitable Ride, raising more than £5,000 to support patients receiving cancer treatment at Ipswich Hospital.
Nearly half of adults across Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk believe money given by parents or grandparents should be judged on a case-by-case basis if family circumstances change, according to new research.
A £100 energy payment, a bigger break on business rates and another rise in the minimum wage – John Healey's first Budget reaches into almost every household and high street business in Ipswich. Here is who gains, who pays, and what people in the town make of it.
Ipswich Borough Council is set to decide whether to keep its powers to tackle anti-social drinking in public for another three years, after 60 of 61 consultation respondents backed the move.
Two Carr Street shops have been let to new tenants, with national discount retailer Bargain World opening its first Suffolk store and an "independent supermarket" taking over the former Betfred unit.
The Be Well Bus is on the Cornhill throughout today, Wednesday, 28 October 2026, offering free blood pressure, height, weight and BMI checks for anyone who visits.
One of Ipswich's largest town centre shops is being offered for sale or rent, raising questions about its future. But the former C&A building on Upper Brook Street has a story that stretches far beyond its current occupant, Poundstretcher. From childhood shopping trips to a much-loved rocking horse.
Extra emergency beds this winter, a seven-day cap on stays, more Housing First support and CCTV in rough sleeping hot spots are among the measures in a new plan to tackle rough sleeping, which also sets out how Ipswich will use its share of the Government's £442m Rough Sleeping Programme.
Police, councils and housing associations have a new tool to tackle persistent antisocial behaviour (ASB) after Respect Orders came into force this week.
Ipswich Borough Council's executive will decide on Tuesday, 3 November, whether to revoke the air quality management area covering Star Lane and surrounding streets, after nitrogen dioxide levels stayed below the legal limit for three years - but two other parts of town remain close to it.
Charlie Dando, 22, from Boxford, has followed two colleagues in winning the same prestigious apprenticeship award, after judges praised his drive to mentor others and champion sustainability.
Students at three Suffolk college groups could get guaranteed university offers and a £1,000 payment under new agreements designed to ease the cost of higher education closer to home.
Plans for 1,200 homes at Foxhall Road have revealed an extraordinary quantity of potentially valuable minerals beneath the site. But the developer's own consultants say extracting them first would be impractical. Ipswich.co.uk examines what lies below the surface and why it matters.
Attwells Solicitors has been named a finalist in four categories at the 2026 LEAP Modern Law Conveyancing Awards, with winners announced in November.
Two years after promising to modernise historic Ipswich firm Gotelee Solicitors, self-styled legal 'disruptor' Mezzle has collapsed into administration – having closed two of Gotelee's offices within a year of taking over.
Sizewell C now has 166 apprentices, 111 of them from Suffolk - putting the nuclear power station past 10% of its pledge to recruit at least 1,500 apprentices during construction.
Suffolk County Council could receive up to £219.4m from the Government over the next four years to maintain its roads, but says the sum still falls short of what's needed to keep the county's highways in a steady state.
Suffolk Police will carry out roadside vision screenings over the next fortnight, checking motorists can read a number plate from 20 metres as part of a national road safety drive.
Around 3,500 young people from across Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex got a glimpse of their future this month, as 73 businesses and organisations descended on Suffolk New College for its third annual FutureSkills Fair.
Senior business and political figures gathered at BT's Martlesham research centre on Friday, 26 October, for the third Suffolk Convention, as the county weighs how to secure better funding from Westminster and prepares to elect its first Norfolk and Suffolk mayor.
As plans to demolish the 92-year-old Suffolk landmark come under scrutiny, other redundant water towers have found remarkable new lives. And East Suffolk Council has confirmed it possesses a legal power that could give Trimley’s tower a fighting chance.
The Hembry family, who have a long-standing association with the town and own a number of sites and developments, are understood to be the 'last buyer standing' for the Buttermarket Centre. The price is believed to be around £5m – a fraction of the £54.7m it fetched nine years ago.
Fifty local men were offered free prostate cancer blood tests after Kesgrave War Memorial Community Centre (KWMCC) secured council funding to bring the CHAPS charity to town.
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