Should Lloyds Avenue wait for Debenhams?

Six years on from its first proposal, Lloyds Avenue has outlasted four changes of prime minister, several local elections, and more than one missed start date. Construction is now expected to begin later this year, following approval from Suffolk County Council's highways service.

First proposed in December 2020, funded through the Towns Fund the following year, and delayed repeatedly since — most recently after problems were discovered with the substrate beneath its footpaths — the scheme has taken longer to reach a start date than many expected. Ipswich.co.uk has pressed the council on its progress for months.

But the announcement of a start date for construction of Lloyds Avenue did not arrive alone. On the very same day, the council also revealed it had completed its own long-running saga: the acquisition of the former Debenhams building, a hulking, stripped-out shell that sits directly along the same street and adjoins the Grade II listed Lloyds Arch. Two ends of the same corner, two long-awaited announcements, one day. The council itself has described the two schemes as "far from separate."

That overlap has raised a question that has, so far, gone largely unasked and unanswered: is Ipswich Borough Council building half a plan, and hoping the other half fits later? Put another way: should Lloyds Avenue be put on hold, and developed as part of a single masterplan?

Two timelines, one street

The current Lloyds Avenue design was unveiled in July 2024 — sketched out, costed and signed off more than two years before the Debenhams acquisition was confirmed. At the time, nobody drawing up those plans knew the derelict building at the end of the street would soon belong to the council too.

The Debenhams site's future, by contrast, is still very much unwritten. The council intends to run a developer-led design competition, inviting full development teams to submit proposals covering design, funding, planning and delivery. It has not yet decided whether demolition will take place before or after that competition concludes, nor what the resulting mixed-use development will look like once the dust settles.

Lloyds Avenue's scope, meanwhile, has already been fixed. The scheme includes expanded pedestrian areas, improved seating and high-quality paving across both footways and carriageways, similar to work already completed on St Peter's Street, alongside new cycle parking, the decluttering of Lloyds Archway and new planters. The Grade II listed Lloyds Arch will be retained, with additional green space created around it — as part of the Debenhams scheme, running on its own separate clock.

The case for pressing ahead

Council leader Neil MacDonald has framed the Lloyds Avenue works as central to the town centre's future. "This is fantastic news for Ipswich and another important milestone in our ambition to create a vibrant, attractive and accessible town centre for residents, businesses and visitors alike," he said, adding that the improvements would "transform a key route through the town centre, creating more space for people, encouraging walking and providing an attractive setting that supports local businesses and the wider visitor economy."

For businesses and residents who have waited years for so much as a shovel in the ground, the case for finally proceeding is straightforward. The scheme has already survived multiple delays, and there is no guarantee that waiting for the Debenhams design competition to conclude would change the proposed Lloyds Avenue scheme. Sometimes momentum, once earned, is worth keeping.

The case for waiting

Others may point out that Lloyds Avenue and the Debenhams site do not simply sit near one another — they meet at the same junction, share a common landmark in Lloyds Arch, and will together define one of the most prominent corners of the town centre for generations to come. A design finalised in 2024, before the council even owned the Debenhams site, was necessarily drawn up blind to what would eventually replace it.

Whether that timing gap matters in practice is itself an open question. The two schemes could proceed independently with no meaningful loss of coherence; equally possible is a masterplan encompassing both, producing a more considered outcome for the wider area than two projects arriving at different times, shaped by different pressures — one finished, one still a blank page.

A more practical question also hangs over the council.

If Lloyds Avenue's sparkly new benches, planters and paving are finished by mid-2027 while the Debenhams site is mid-demolition, the newly finished public space will open directly onto a building site. New outdoor seating outside the Three Wise Monkeys, within earshot of bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks clearing the site opposite, is obviously not the vision the scheme was sold on.

What the council says

Ipswich.co.uk put these questions to Ipswich Borough Council ahead of publication, and the council was reluctant to address any of them in detail.

A council spokesperson said the two schemes "have been considered" and "will be kept under review," but confirmed there was "no desire to delay" the Lloyds Avenue works if they could proceed "without adversely affecting the progression of a project to redevelop the Waterloo House site" — the original name for the former Debenhams building.

"There is no part of the Lloyds Avenue improvements that would cause any issues with the redevelopment of the Waterloo House site," the spokesperson said, seemingly missing the crux of the question, which was about potentially missing an opportunity rather than causing issues.

Asked whether demolition of the building would take place before or after the outcome of the developer-led design competition, the spokesperson said "a definite timeline for either the demolition or the developer-led design competition isn't yet known," adding that the council first needs consent to demolish the building and to engage the market for the competition.

Asked directly how the redevelopment of the site would now be funded, following the government's decision not to proceed with local government reorganisation in Suffolk, the spokesperson did not address funding, instead explaining the mechanics of a developer-led design competition, in which development teams are invited to bring forward proposals they can design, fund, secure planning permission for and deliver themselves. In other words: there is no funding plan...yet.

Asked whether the council had anything further to add on the relationship between the two schemes, or on residents' concerns that this corner of the town centre may be shaped by two separate decisions rather than one plan, the spokesperson said: "No."

What happens next

Lloyds Avenue is expected to be completed by mid-July 2027. The former Debenhams building, by contrast, remains a question mark on the map: the council has yet to confirm the sequencing of demolition and its design competition, or the eventual form of the mixed-use scheme that follows.

Funding adds a further layer of uncertainty. The purchase and demolition of the Debenhams building have been funded through the Local Regeneration Fund, formerly the Towns Fund, but the cost of developing whatever replaces it remains unfunded.

It was expected that responsibility for funding the redevelopment would fall to the incoming Ipswich & South Suffolk unitary authority. But the government's surprise decision to scrap local government reorganisation in Suffolk has pulled that assumption out from under the scheme, leaving the question of how the site's future will actually be paid for hanging in the air along with the dust from whatever comes down first.

The bottom line

Lloyds Avenue and the former Debenhams building sit on the same stretch of street, share the same landmark, and will define the same corner of the town centre for generations. One is a finished blueprint and about to begin construction; the other is still an empty shell awaiting an idea.

Both schemes, the council says, have been 'considered' and will be 'kept under review.' Whether that constitutes a masterplan, or two decisions that happened to land on the same day, is for residents to decide. Either way, this corner of town will not be redeveloped again — and the council will not get a second chance to get it right.

Don't forget: If you enjoy our content, please add Ipswich.co.uk as a "preferred source" on Google so you can easily find more of the content you value.

This article cost us ~£176 to produce

It's free for you to read thanks to the generous support of our partners. Please support us by supporting them.