SuffolkNews Podcast: Bury St Edmunds pub The Flying Fortress to be revamped

In today’s podcast, a long-closed pub in Bury St Edmunds is set to be revamped to bring it back into use next year.

The Flying Fortress, in Mount Road, has been closed since April 2014, and Greene King has submitted plans to transform the venue.

A planning statement, from Walsingham Planning, said the application to West Suffolk Council includes a package of works to renovate, refurbish and upgrade the pub.

Some of the proposed works include a new vehicle access from Saltsman Road, a new entrance porch/lobby, a new timber pergola at the back to provide covered seating and children's play equipment in the beer garden.

The full story can be found here.

Also, the family of the Haverhill teenager Harley Barfield, who was stabbed to death in January, is in a row with West Suffolk Council over a memorial bench next to his grave.

They have been told by the council that the black bench, bearing a plaque saying ‘In loving memory of Harley Barfield, forever 16’, must be removed and replaced with one supplied by the council and leased to the family for an initial period of 10 years.

The council says the bench was installed in breach of its regulations - however, the family has vowed to ‘fight for it to remain’.

Harley’s mum Bernice and the rest of the family has rejected the council’s offer and have said ‘We want Harley’s bench to stay and will fight on for that. I’ve still not come to terms with the fact that my boy has gone and they are making me fight over a wooden bench.”

For more on the story see here.

And finally, highways engineers are seeking views on proposed A14 slip road closures in a bid to combat rat-running through villages.

National Highways, which is reconstructing a section of the A14 between junction 47a Haughley to junction 49 Tothill, says it is considering further measures due to motorists ignoring signs to stick to the single lane A14 contraflow.

It follows complaints from residents in Suffolk villages including Woolpit, Elmswell, Haughley, Beyton, Tostock, and Wetherden about motorists using the villages as short cuts to avoid delays.

People are asked to send their views to concrete roads east A14 @nationalhighways.co.uk.

To read more see here.

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